Tweet
ISRAELI LAWMAKERS DEBATE RECOGNIZING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
http://www.rferl.org/content/israeli_lawmakers_debate_armenia_killings_genocide _issue/24434744.html
Dec 27 2011
JERUSALEM -- Israeli lawmakers have ignored government objections
and discussed the possibility of recognizing the 1915 mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, RFE/RL's Armenian
Service reports.
The three-hour session on December 26 was held by the Israeli
parliament's Education and Culture Committee and attended by committee
members, government officials, and representatives of the country's
Armenian and Turkish communities in a first-ever public hearing on
the sensitive issue held in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The committee made no decision after the session, saying it will hold
more discussions on the issue in the future.
Knesset panels have held such hearings in the past but only behind
closed doors, reflecting the close political and security ties
between Israel and Turkey until recently. This was the first time
such a discussion was open to the public.
Hagop Sevan of the Armenian National Committee in Jerusalem called
that fact a "small victory" for local Armenians who have been pushing
for an official Israeli recognition of the killings as genocide.
Successive Israeli governments have opposed such a move, citing the
strategic character of the Turkish-Israeli relationship. That stance
has officially remained the same even since a sharp deterioration of
those ties that followed last year's deadly Israeli commando raid on
a Turkish ferry bound for Gaza.
"I can say that at this time, recognition of this type can have very
grave strategic implications," Irit Lillian, a representative of
the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told the hearing on what the Knesset
committee defined as the possibility of "the Jewish people's
recognition of the Armenian genocide."
She added that "our relations with Turkey today are so fragile and
so delicate that there is no place to take them over the red line."
Ariyeh Eldad of the right-wing National Union party, who along with
Zehava Gal-On of the left-wing Meretz party initiated the hearing,
dismissed those objections.
"In the past it was wrong to bring up the issue because our ties with
Turkey were good; now it is wrong because our ties with them are bad.
When will the time be right?" he said.
Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin also attended the debate and signaled
support for genocide recognition. He denied any connection between
the hearing and Turkish-Israeli tensions.
Knesset committee chairman Alex Miller likewise denied any political
reasons for the development.
Gal-On spoke of Israel's "moral and historical obligation" to
recognize the genocide "especially when we are still struggling
against Holocaust denial."
She cited the recent passage by the French lower house of parliament of
a bill criminalizing genocide denial in officially recognized cases,
which currently include Rwanda in 1994, the Nazi-era Holocaust, and
the mass killing of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
Meanwhile, the main author of that bill said she has received death
threats after her website was apparently hacked by Turkish nationalists
on December 25.
Valerie Boyer, a deputy in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union
for the Popular Movement party, was the main sponsor of the draft
law approved by the National Assembly and strongly condemned by the
Turkish government late last week.
Boyer told the BFM-TV station that she, her children, and her parents
have received "extremely grave" threats since then.
"It's totally paradoxical to be the author and the rapporteur of a
text which speaks of human rights, human dignity, recognition, and
protection of the weak and legislate under threat; be threatened by
a foreign state and then be subjected to extremely grave personal
threat," she said. "Death threats, threats of rape and threats of
destruction, name-calling and insults. I find this very shocking."
Boyer, who is also the deputy head of the French parliamentary
caucus promoting ties with Armenia, said visitors to her website were
automatically redirected to a website purportedly owned by a Turkish
hacker group presenting itself as GrayHatz.
It displayed the Turkish national flag and contained a message
addressed to the French government and France's 500,000-strong
Armenian community.
"You, the diaspora Armenians, are such cowards that you don't have
guts to open up the Armenian archives and face the truth," read the
message posted in Turkish and English. "You, the French people, are so
pitiful and pathetic that you are disregarding the truths for votes."
The draft law next must be approved by the Senate, which is dominated
by members of the opposition Socialist Party.
An adviser to French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told the daily
"Le Figaro" on December 26 that Boyer and her family will be given
"discreet and effective protection for some time."
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
http://www.rferl.org/content/israeli_lawmakers_debate_armenia_killings_genocide _issue/24434744.html
Dec 27 2011
JERUSALEM -- Israeli lawmakers have ignored government objections
and discussed the possibility of recognizing the 1915 mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, RFE/RL's Armenian
Service reports.
The three-hour session on December 26 was held by the Israeli
parliament's Education and Culture Committee and attended by committee
members, government officials, and representatives of the country's
Armenian and Turkish communities in a first-ever public hearing on
the sensitive issue held in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The committee made no decision after the session, saying it will hold
more discussions on the issue in the future.
Knesset panels have held such hearings in the past but only behind
closed doors, reflecting the close political and security ties
between Israel and Turkey until recently. This was the first time
such a discussion was open to the public.
Hagop Sevan of the Armenian National Committee in Jerusalem called
that fact a "small victory" for local Armenians who have been pushing
for an official Israeli recognition of the killings as genocide.
Successive Israeli governments have opposed such a move, citing the
strategic character of the Turkish-Israeli relationship. That stance
has officially remained the same even since a sharp deterioration of
those ties that followed last year's deadly Israeli commando raid on
a Turkish ferry bound for Gaza.
"I can say that at this time, recognition of this type can have very
grave strategic implications," Irit Lillian, a representative of
the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told the hearing on what the Knesset
committee defined as the possibility of "the Jewish people's
recognition of the Armenian genocide."
She added that "our relations with Turkey today are so fragile and
so delicate that there is no place to take them over the red line."
Ariyeh Eldad of the right-wing National Union party, who along with
Zehava Gal-On of the left-wing Meretz party initiated the hearing,
dismissed those objections.
"In the past it was wrong to bring up the issue because our ties with
Turkey were good; now it is wrong because our ties with them are bad.
When will the time be right?" he said.
Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin also attended the debate and signaled
support for genocide recognition. He denied any connection between
the hearing and Turkish-Israeli tensions.
Knesset committee chairman Alex Miller likewise denied any political
reasons for the development.
Gal-On spoke of Israel's "moral and historical obligation" to
recognize the genocide "especially when we are still struggling
against Holocaust denial."
She cited the recent passage by the French lower house of parliament of
a bill criminalizing genocide denial in officially recognized cases,
which currently include Rwanda in 1994, the Nazi-era Holocaust, and
the mass killing of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
Meanwhile, the main author of that bill said she has received death
threats after her website was apparently hacked by Turkish nationalists
on December 25.
Valerie Boyer, a deputy in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union
for the Popular Movement party, was the main sponsor of the draft
law approved by the National Assembly and strongly condemned by the
Turkish government late last week.
Boyer told the BFM-TV station that she, her children, and her parents
have received "extremely grave" threats since then.
"It's totally paradoxical to be the author and the rapporteur of a
text which speaks of human rights, human dignity, recognition, and
protection of the weak and legislate under threat; be threatened by
a foreign state and then be subjected to extremely grave personal
threat," she said. "Death threats, threats of rape and threats of
destruction, name-calling and insults. I find this very shocking."
Boyer, who is also the deputy head of the French parliamentary
caucus promoting ties with Armenia, said visitors to her website were
automatically redirected to a website purportedly owned by a Turkish
hacker group presenting itself as GrayHatz.
It displayed the Turkish national flag and contained a message
addressed to the French government and France's 500,000-strong
Armenian community.
"You, the diaspora Armenians, are such cowards that you don't have
guts to open up the Armenian archives and face the truth," read the
message posted in Turkish and English. "You, the French people, are so
pitiful and pathetic that you are disregarding the truths for votes."
The draft law next must be approved by the Senate, which is dominated
by members of the opposition Socialist Party.
An adviser to French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told the daily
"Le Figaro" on December 26 that Boyer and her family will be given
"discreet and effective protection for some time."