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A moral Israel must recognize the Armenian genocide
01/22/2012 16:51 By ISRAEL W. CHARNY
http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=254656
Israel must put an end to this charade and fully recognize the Armenian
genocide.
Photo by: REUTERS/Robert Pratta
I never cease to be amazed at the `upside-down double talk' that genocide
deniers speak - not only in denial of the Armenian genocide, but in denial
of the Holocaust and, believe it or not, denial of the Rwandan genocide. In
fact, many of us scholars characterize denial of genocide as the `last
stage of genocide.'
In a recent article
in The
Jerusalem Post called `Armenian Genocide: Israel must maintain its moral
compass,' the arguments set forth by Hakan Yavuz and Tal Buenos are a thin
veneer for nothing less than a pro-Turkish government position of
maintaining denial of the Armenian genocide.
What is their argument? For Israel to now to break its silence and
recognize the Armenian genocide, it would be tantamount to confessing,
retroactively, that its been playing politics all along by remaining silent
and, with crocodile tears, admitting that those of us who care about Israel
cannot allow that to happen.
Wrong enough, but their basic argument is extended by a manipulative and
factually irresponsible debate of the very concept of `genocide.' Suddenly
the historic Polish attorney Raphael Lemkin, a Jew with a high post in the
Polish government legal system who we recognize as having virtually given
his life to bring into international law the concept of `genocide' that he
created, is characterized as `an employee of the US Government' who he
was
serving to gain a moral advantage over the Germans after WWII.
There is not a word of recognition that Lemkin first submitted a resolution
about the mass killing of religious and national entities to the League of
Nations long before WWII. Lemkin was an employee of the US occupational
Army in Germany very briefly after surviving the Holocaust in which he lost
virtually all of his family. After giving up law positions at Duke
University as well as Yale, he devoted himself full time to the passage of
the Genocide Convention in the newly founded United Nations. The authors
should be reprimanded severely for their distorted presentation of Lemkin's
identity.
The key issue that emerges is the question of whether, after years of a
realpolitik denial of the Armenian genocide, in disheartening
obsequiousness to Turkey in an attempt to gain their favor at the expense
of the basic moral principles that are intrinsic to recognition to another
people's genocide or holocaust, Israel's recognition of the Armenian
genocide would constitute another politicized move rather than a moral
correction.
Finally, the authors seek to stall with a disingenuous promise, 70 years
after the Holocaust, that further study of the concept of `genocide' will
bring us to an understanding we do not have, as if we do not know that
genocide is the mass murder of a significant part of a targeted people,
executed by a government or any other entity, such as a religious or
ideological group or a terrorist organization.
The facts are well known: The Turkish government executed the Armenian
genocide - in which one to one-and-a-half million Armenians were murdered.
And for us Jews and Israelis, there are added meanings: One Israeli
Professor at Bar Ilan University once characterized the Armenian genocide
as a `dress rehearsal for the Holocaust.' We also know that Hitler
explicitly built on the precedent of the Armenian genocide when he went
after us Jews.
The writer is executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and
Genocide in Jerusalem, editor of the Web Magazine GPN GENOCIDE PREVENTI0N
NOW, a co-founder and former president of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars and editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide. He was
awarded the Armenian Presidential Prize -similar to the Israel Prize - in
Yerevan in June 2011 for his contributions to the study of denials of
genocides - of course including the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.
01/22/2012 16:51 By ISRAEL W. CHARNY
http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=254656
Israel must put an end to this charade and fully recognize the Armenian
genocide.
Photo by: REUTERS/Robert Pratta
I never cease to be amazed at the `upside-down double talk' that genocide
deniers speak - not only in denial of the Armenian genocide, but in denial
of the Holocaust and, believe it or not, denial of the Rwandan genocide. In
fact, many of us scholars characterize denial of genocide as the `last
stage of genocide.'
In a recent article
in The
Jerusalem Post called `Armenian Genocide: Israel must maintain its moral
compass,' the arguments set forth by Hakan Yavuz and Tal Buenos are a thin
veneer for nothing less than a pro-Turkish government position of
maintaining denial of the Armenian genocide.
What is their argument? For Israel to now to break its silence and
recognize the Armenian genocide, it would be tantamount to confessing,
retroactively, that its been playing politics all along by remaining silent
and, with crocodile tears, admitting that those of us who care about Israel
cannot allow that to happen.
Wrong enough, but their basic argument is extended by a manipulative and
factually irresponsible debate of the very concept of `genocide.' Suddenly
the historic Polish attorney Raphael Lemkin, a Jew with a high post in the
Polish government legal system who we recognize as having virtually given
his life to bring into international law the concept of `genocide' that he
created, is characterized as `an employee of the US Government' who he
was
serving to gain a moral advantage over the Germans after WWII.
There is not a word of recognition that Lemkin first submitted a resolution
about the mass killing of religious and national entities to the League of
Nations long before WWII. Lemkin was an employee of the US occupational
Army in Germany very briefly after surviving the Holocaust in which he lost
virtually all of his family. After giving up law positions at Duke
University as well as Yale, he devoted himself full time to the passage of
the Genocide Convention in the newly founded United Nations. The authors
should be reprimanded severely for their distorted presentation of Lemkin's
identity.
The key issue that emerges is the question of whether, after years of a
realpolitik denial of the Armenian genocide, in disheartening
obsequiousness to Turkey in an attempt to gain their favor at the expense
of the basic moral principles that are intrinsic to recognition to another
people's genocide or holocaust, Israel's recognition of the Armenian
genocide would constitute another politicized move rather than a moral
correction.
Finally, the authors seek to stall with a disingenuous promise, 70 years
after the Holocaust, that further study of the concept of `genocide' will
bring us to an understanding we do not have, as if we do not know that
genocide is the mass murder of a significant part of a targeted people,
executed by a government or any other entity, such as a religious or
ideological group or a terrorist organization.
The facts are well known: The Turkish government executed the Armenian
genocide - in which one to one-and-a-half million Armenians were murdered.
And for us Jews and Israelis, there are added meanings: One Israeli
Professor at Bar Ilan University once characterized the Armenian genocide
as a `dress rehearsal for the Holocaust.' We also know that Hitler
explicitly built on the precedent of the Armenian genocide when he went
after us Jews.
The writer is executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and
Genocide in Jerusalem, editor of the Web Magazine GPN GENOCIDE PREVENTI0N
NOW, a co-founder and former president of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars and editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide. He was
awarded the Armenian Presidential Prize -similar to the Israel Prize - in
Yerevan in June 2011 for his contributions to the study of denials of
genocides - of course including the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.