Tweet
ISRAEL MPS NOTE TURKISH MASS KILLINGS OF ARMENIANS
Ahram Online, Egypt
April 23 2013
Parliamentary discussion comes day after first round of reconciliation
talks between Israel and Turkey
AFP , Tuesday 23 Apr 2013
Israel's parliament on Tuesday held talks to mark the Turkish mass
killings of Armenians in 1915, even as the Jewish state and Ankara
take the first steps to try to patch up ties.
"It is time that Israel recognise the massacre of the Armenians, like
27 other states have," said Zehava Galon of the opposition Meretz
party who initiated the discussion.
The parliamentary discussion comes a day after a first round of
reconciliation talks between Israel and Turkey began in Ankara,
focusing on compensation over a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound
aid ship.
The high-stakes negotiations follow a formal apology last month Israel
made for the botched 2010 raid in which its troops killed nine Turkish
activists on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
The Israeli parliament has for years been holding hearings marking
the events and in 2007 rejected a motion to recognise the Turkish
mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915 as a "genocide."
In December 2011, a parliamentary committee held a landmark public
debate on recognising what the Armenians term a genocide, as recognised
by more than 20 countries. Past hearings had taken place behind
closed doors.
Proposals by lawmakers to hold debates on the issue had been rejected
by Israeli governments over the years, when ties with Turkey were
warmer.
"This is an important strategic move I fully support," Galon said
on Tuesday of the reconciliation talks, "but it shouldn't affect
recognising the Armenian massacre. It's not either recognising the
genocide or the relations with Turkey, but both."
Knesset member Reuven Rivlin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
rightwing Likud party stressed that ties with Turkey and reconciliation
with it were important to the Jewish state.
But he warned that overlooking another people's disaster would weaken
Israel's stance on the Holocaust.
"This is our moral duty as humans and as Jews," the former Knesset
speaker said during the discussion.
"If we ignore another nation's disaster, we won't have the moral right
to demand other nations to 'remember and not forget' our own disaster."
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey strongly denies this, saying 300,000 Armenians and as many
Turks were killed in civil conflict when the Christian Armenians,
backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/70005/World/Region/Israel-MPs-note-Turkish-mass-killings-of-Armenians.aspx
Ahram Online, Egypt
April 23 2013
Parliamentary discussion comes day after first round of reconciliation
talks between Israel and Turkey
AFP , Tuesday 23 Apr 2013
Israel's parliament on Tuesday held talks to mark the Turkish mass
killings of Armenians in 1915, even as the Jewish state and Ankara
take the first steps to try to patch up ties.
"It is time that Israel recognise the massacre of the Armenians, like
27 other states have," said Zehava Galon of the opposition Meretz
party who initiated the discussion.
The parliamentary discussion comes a day after a first round of
reconciliation talks between Israel and Turkey began in Ankara,
focusing on compensation over a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound
aid ship.
The high-stakes negotiations follow a formal apology last month Israel
made for the botched 2010 raid in which its troops killed nine Turkish
activists on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
The Israeli parliament has for years been holding hearings marking
the events and in 2007 rejected a motion to recognise the Turkish
mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915 as a "genocide."
In December 2011, a parliamentary committee held a landmark public
debate on recognising what the Armenians term a genocide, as recognised
by more than 20 countries. Past hearings had taken place behind
closed doors.
Proposals by lawmakers to hold debates on the issue had been rejected
by Israeli governments over the years, when ties with Turkey were
warmer.
"This is an important strategic move I fully support," Galon said
on Tuesday of the reconciliation talks, "but it shouldn't affect
recognising the Armenian massacre. It's not either recognising the
genocide or the relations with Turkey, but both."
Knesset member Reuven Rivlin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
rightwing Likud party stressed that ties with Turkey and reconciliation
with it were important to the Jewish state.
But he warned that overlooking another people's disaster would weaken
Israel's stance on the Holocaust.
"This is our moral duty as humans and as Jews," the former Knesset
speaker said during the discussion.
"If we ignore another nation's disaster, we won't have the moral right
to demand other nations to 'remember and not forget' our own disaster."
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey strongly denies this, saying 300,000 Armenians and as many
Turks were killed in civil conflict when the Christian Armenians,
backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/70005/World/Region/Israel-MPs-note-Turkish-mass-killings-of-Armenians.aspx