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PanARMENIAN.Net
Israel more than other nations, has a moral obligation to call
Armenian Genocide by its name
14.02.2009 14:01 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Ankara's indefatigable efforts to prevent
international recognition of the Armenian genocide derive from the
fact that its denial is part of Turkey's founding mythology, a plank
of official policy since the 1922 Lausanne Conference, where claims of
mass killings were dismissed as "Christian propaganda," journalist
Sean Gannon whites in his `Essay: Genocide by any international
standard' published in The Jerusalem Post.
`In 1934, it successfully lobbied Washington to persuade MGM to drop
plans to film The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel's best-selling
novel about the Armenian experience, by threatening to boycott
American films,' the article says.
It goes on:
`This campaign of denial intensified after 1965 when Armenian
commemorations of the 50th anniversary brought the issue to
international attention. By the mid-1970s, Turkey was engaged in what
Richard Falk described as "a major, proactive, deliberate effort
to... keep the truth about the Armenian Genocide from general
acknowledgment." By the 1990s, this included the endowment of chairs
in Turkish studies at several US universities with the aim of
disseminating Ankara's version of events.
ACCORDING TO THIS VERSION, Armenians have willfully painted an
inaccurate picture of what happened in the World War I period and
why. And there is certainly truth in Turkey's claim that the situation
was not as clear-cut as generally presented. Rarely acknowledged, for
instance, is that the rise of Armenian nationalism in the 19th century
led to enormous tensions between Armenians and their Ottoman
overlords, and that many had sided against the empire in the 1828,
1854 and 1877 wars.
It is also infrequently admitted that although 250,000 Armenians were
conscripted into the Ottoman armies during World War I, another
150,000, out of a sense of religious affinity with the Orthodox Slavs
and in the hope that a Russian victory would lead to an independent
Armenian state, volunteered to serve under the czar, while a further
50,000 joined Armenian guerrilla groups which openly sided with
him. Seldom spoken of either is the fact that hundreds of thousands of
Muslim, Greek and Jewish civilians died directly at their hands.
But while Constantinople may have gained grounds for viewing the
Armenians as a fifth column, nonpartisan sources make clear that their
deportation and murder began before any attempted insurrection. As
David Fromkin, who studied German sources, has written: "There are
historians today who continue to support the claim... that the Ottoman
rulers acted only after Armenia had risen against them. But observers
at the time who were by no means anti-Turk reported that such was not
the case. German officers stationed there agreed that the area was
quiet until the deportations began."
Ankara also denies that 1.5 million Armenians actually died. While
some Turkish historians allow that up to 600,000 were killed, the
semi-official Turkish Historical Society puts the figure closer to
300,000 and argues that, of these, only 10,000 were massacred, the
remainder dying of starvation and disease. It further claims that
these 10,000 were killed, not as part of a genocidal plan, but in the
heat of battle and more often than not by Kurds.
But it is a matter of historical record that the Special Organization,
an official arm of the Defense Ministry, oversaw the activities of
Einsatzgruppen-style killing squads that, in the words of one US
diplomat, "swept the countryside, massacring [Armenian] men, women and
children." And while Kurds were certainly involved in the killing,
they were deliberately coopted for the task by the Turkish War
Ministry in the knowledge that, as the Armenians' historic blood
enemies, they would lose no opportunity to avenge ancient grudges.
Ankara's distinction between those directly murdered and those who
died indirectly from starvation, disease and exposure is also highly
questionable. With no provision made for clothing, food or shelter,
the anticipated outcome of the deportations into the Syrian desert was
obviously death. In fact, the Turkish interior minister termed them
"marches to eternity" and his meaning was clear to his appalled German
allies who distanced themselves from the policy. To say that the
Armenians who died during the deportations were not deliberately
killed is like claiming there were no intentional Jewish deaths during
their "relocation" to the East or on the death marches to the West
during World War II.
THE FACT IS that the Armenian massacres constituted genocide by any
international standard, conforming to the UN's criterion of having
been "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Indeed, Raphael
Lemkin, who coined the term 'genocide' in 1944, used the Armenian
massacres as an illustrative example.
Today Turkey's campaign to prevent its recognition is assuming a
Canute-like quality. Some 21 countries have already formally
acknowledged it, including Russia, Canada and France, as has the
European Parliament, the World Council of Churches and the
International Association of Genocide Scholars. And with President
Barack Obama (who twice pledged to recognize the genocide during his
election campaign), Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, CIA chief Leon Panetta
and the NSC's director of multilateral affairs Samantha Power also on
board, we now have what the Turkish daily Hurriyet described as the
"most pro-Armenian [administration] in history," and the Armenian
National Committee of America is currently preparing to place another
"recognition resolution" before Congress. In fact, Obama may well use
this year's April 24 White House statement commemorating the killings
to recognize them as genocide.
Furthermore, an official with a leading American Jewish organization
recently told The Jerusalem Post that the post-Cast Lead
"deterioration in Israel-Turkey relations might prompt his group and
others to reconsider" their traditional support for Ankara's
stance. And Israel, which Yair Auron, author of The Banality of
Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, describes as Turkey's
"principal partner" in denial, has itself made similar noises, with
Deputy Foreign Minister Majallie Whbee warning that if Turkey persists
in its claims that genocide is taking place in Gaza, "we will then
recognize the Armenian-related events as genocide."
Albeit for the wrong reasons, this is surely the right thing to
do. For, while fears regarding repercussions for both bilateral
relations and Turkey's 25,000-strong Jewish community are
unfortunately well-founded, Israel, perhaps more than other nations,
has a moral obligation to call this crime by its name.
The writer is a freelance journalist, writing mainly on Irish and
Middle Eastern affairs. He is currently preparing a book on the
history of Irish-Israeli relations.'
Israel more than other nations, has a moral obligation to call
Armenian Genocide by its name
14.02.2009 14:01 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Ankara's indefatigable efforts to prevent
international recognition of the Armenian genocide derive from the
fact that its denial is part of Turkey's founding mythology, a plank
of official policy since the 1922 Lausanne Conference, where claims of
mass killings were dismissed as "Christian propaganda," journalist
Sean Gannon whites in his `Essay: Genocide by any international
standard' published in The Jerusalem Post.
`In 1934, it successfully lobbied Washington to persuade MGM to drop
plans to film The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel's best-selling
novel about the Armenian experience, by threatening to boycott
American films,' the article says.
It goes on:
`This campaign of denial intensified after 1965 when Armenian
commemorations of the 50th anniversary brought the issue to
international attention. By the mid-1970s, Turkey was engaged in what
Richard Falk described as "a major, proactive, deliberate effort
to... keep the truth about the Armenian Genocide from general
acknowledgment." By the 1990s, this included the endowment of chairs
in Turkish studies at several US universities with the aim of
disseminating Ankara's version of events.
ACCORDING TO THIS VERSION, Armenians have willfully painted an
inaccurate picture of what happened in the World War I period and
why. And there is certainly truth in Turkey's claim that the situation
was not as clear-cut as generally presented. Rarely acknowledged, for
instance, is that the rise of Armenian nationalism in the 19th century
led to enormous tensions between Armenians and their Ottoman
overlords, and that many had sided against the empire in the 1828,
1854 and 1877 wars.
It is also infrequently admitted that although 250,000 Armenians were
conscripted into the Ottoman armies during World War I, another
150,000, out of a sense of religious affinity with the Orthodox Slavs
and in the hope that a Russian victory would lead to an independent
Armenian state, volunteered to serve under the czar, while a further
50,000 joined Armenian guerrilla groups which openly sided with
him. Seldom spoken of either is the fact that hundreds of thousands of
Muslim, Greek and Jewish civilians died directly at their hands.
But while Constantinople may have gained grounds for viewing the
Armenians as a fifth column, nonpartisan sources make clear that their
deportation and murder began before any attempted insurrection. As
David Fromkin, who studied German sources, has written: "There are
historians today who continue to support the claim... that the Ottoman
rulers acted only after Armenia had risen against them. But observers
at the time who were by no means anti-Turk reported that such was not
the case. German officers stationed there agreed that the area was
quiet until the deportations began."
Ankara also denies that 1.5 million Armenians actually died. While
some Turkish historians allow that up to 600,000 were killed, the
semi-official Turkish Historical Society puts the figure closer to
300,000 and argues that, of these, only 10,000 were massacred, the
remainder dying of starvation and disease. It further claims that
these 10,000 were killed, not as part of a genocidal plan, but in the
heat of battle and more often than not by Kurds.
But it is a matter of historical record that the Special Organization,
an official arm of the Defense Ministry, oversaw the activities of
Einsatzgruppen-style killing squads that, in the words of one US
diplomat, "swept the countryside, massacring [Armenian] men, women and
children." And while Kurds were certainly involved in the killing,
they were deliberately coopted for the task by the Turkish War
Ministry in the knowledge that, as the Armenians' historic blood
enemies, they would lose no opportunity to avenge ancient grudges.
Ankara's distinction between those directly murdered and those who
died indirectly from starvation, disease and exposure is also highly
questionable. With no provision made for clothing, food or shelter,
the anticipated outcome of the deportations into the Syrian desert was
obviously death. In fact, the Turkish interior minister termed them
"marches to eternity" and his meaning was clear to his appalled German
allies who distanced themselves from the policy. To say that the
Armenians who died during the deportations were not deliberately
killed is like claiming there were no intentional Jewish deaths during
their "relocation" to the East or on the death marches to the West
during World War II.
THE FACT IS that the Armenian massacres constituted genocide by any
international standard, conforming to the UN's criterion of having
been "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Indeed, Raphael
Lemkin, who coined the term 'genocide' in 1944, used the Armenian
massacres as an illustrative example.
Today Turkey's campaign to prevent its recognition is assuming a
Canute-like quality. Some 21 countries have already formally
acknowledged it, including Russia, Canada and France, as has the
European Parliament, the World Council of Churches and the
International Association of Genocide Scholars. And with President
Barack Obama (who twice pledged to recognize the genocide during his
election campaign), Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, CIA chief Leon Panetta
and the NSC's director of multilateral affairs Samantha Power also on
board, we now have what the Turkish daily Hurriyet described as the
"most pro-Armenian [administration] in history," and the Armenian
National Committee of America is currently preparing to place another
"recognition resolution" before Congress. In fact, Obama may well use
this year's April 24 White House statement commemorating the killings
to recognize them as genocide.
Furthermore, an official with a leading American Jewish organization
recently told The Jerusalem Post that the post-Cast Lead
"deterioration in Israel-Turkey relations might prompt his group and
others to reconsider" their traditional support for Ankara's
stance. And Israel, which Yair Auron, author of The Banality of
Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, describes as Turkey's
"principal partner" in denial, has itself made similar noises, with
Deputy Foreign Minister Majallie Whbee warning that if Turkey persists
in its claims that genocide is taking place in Gaza, "we will then
recognize the Armenian-related events as genocide."
Albeit for the wrong reasons, this is surely the right thing to
do. For, while fears regarding repercussions for both bilateral
relations and Turkey's 25,000-strong Jewish community are
unfortunately well-founded, Israel, perhaps more than other nations,
has a moral obligation to call this crime by its name.
The writer is a freelance journalist, writing mainly on Irish and
Middle Eastern affairs. He is currently preparing a book on the
history of Irish-Israeli relations.'