Knesset panel to consider recognition of Armenian genocide

26/03/2008
Haaretz
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent

The Knesset decided Wednesday that a parliamentary committee will hold an unprecedented hearing on whether to recognize the World War I-era mass murder of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide.

The decision to hold a hearing, which was proposed by Meretz Chairman Haim Oron, was approved by a 12-MK margin. The government did not oppose the motion.

The Knesset House Committee will decide whether the issue will be handed over to the Knesset Education Committee, as Oron wants, or to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, as requested by Yisrael Beiteinu MK Yosef Shagal. The latter generally holds hearings behind closed doors.

Oron wants the committee to recognize the Armenian genocide, pointing out that similar recognition has been afforded recently by the French parliament and the United States Congress. "It is appropriate that the Israeli Knesset, which represents the Jewish people, recognize the Armenian genocide," said Oron. "It is unacceptable that the Jewish people is not making itself heard."

The Meretz MK added that he raises the proposal every year ahead of Armenian Genocide Day, which falls on April 24.

Minister Shalom Simhon, who represented the government in the Knesset debate, did not object to sending the issue to committee. Simhon said the Jewish people have a special sensitivity to the issue and a moral obligation to remember tragic episodes in human history, including the mass murder of the Armenians.

Nonetheless, Simhon added that, "in the course of time this has become a politically charged issue between Armenians and Turks ? and Israel is not interested in taking a side."

Shagal warned that recognizing the killings as a genocide could have repercussions for Israel's diplomatic relations with Turkey, as well as the fate of tens of thousands of Jews who live in Azerbaijan.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenia optimistic Israel will recognize 'genocide'

Dec 23, 2007
By MICHAEL FREUND, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
YEREVAN, Armenia
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The government of Armenia is "very hopeful" that Israel will soon recognize the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by Turks as an "act of genocide," a senior Armenian official told The Jerusalem Post last week.

"The Armenian and Israeli people are united in the suffering that each endured, and no one but the Jewish people can better understand our situation," Sergo Yeritsyan, a former education minister who now serves as a senior adviser to President Robert Kocharian, said.

"The world has recognized and accepted the Holocaust as an historical event, and the world is now acknowledging the genocide of Armenians," Yeritsyan said in an interview in his office in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

"I am very hopeful that Israel, step by step, will recognize it as well... We are very hopeful and we are waiting for it," Yeritsyan said.

Contacted by the Post, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed by Ottoman Turks in a massacre that began in 1915, in what some scholars have declared to be the first systematic act of genocide in the 20th century.

Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been grossly inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Israel has thus far tried to distance itself from the issue, not wanting to offend Ankara and souring relations.

Yeritsyan insisted that the killings constituted genocide and stressed that it was essential for the international community to recognize it as such.

"One must be honest about history," the former professor, who holds a PhD in philology, said, adding that "failure to do so only increases the chances of such a thing happening again."

Yeritsyan welcomed the recent decision by American Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, which in August reversed its traditional position and declared the killing of the Armenians was "tantamount to genocide," saying this was "of course a positive development."

"We, the Armenians, are very emotionally connected with this issue, as you can understand," Yeritsyan said. "But I believe that Jews all over the world can help us to cure the pain."

"We must work together towards greater respect and cooperation between Armenia and Jewish people all over the world," Yeritsyan said. "It is our responsibility to history."

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenian protesters demand Israel recognize genocide by Turks

Oct 22, 2007 19:11 Updated Oct 22, 2007 19:13
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

This is a blotch against Israel. How can Israel claim after this to be against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Jewish Holocaust? Israel lost its moral authority to be a "spokesman" for genocides. I must quickly say that most Jews followed their conscience and did not follow the example of Israel. By this action Israel has legitimized genocide denials. Shame on Israel!

Jerusalem's tiny Armenian community held banners and flags at a protest Monday to demand that Israel recognize the mass killings of ethnic Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago as genocide.

[...]

Israel has become a player in the US debate. Armenians expect Israel to sympathize with their demands, because of the Jewish state was built in the shadow of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. But Turkey has threatened to cool its ties with Israel if it doesn't use its influence in Washington to quell the campaign. Turkey is one of Israel's few Muslim allies.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

ADL's Zakim Regrets Offense to Armenian Community

By JUDITH KLEIN
Jewish Journal Staff

"I regret if any Armenian - or anyone in the community - was offended or made uncomfortable," New England Anti-Defamation League Executive Director Leonard Zakim said this week in an interview with The Jewish Journal, referring to a November 8 ad in the New York Times. The ad, paid for by ADL, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, congratulated Turkey on its 75th anniversary as a
republic, and thanked the Turkish government for its long-held support of Jews and the State of Israel.

The ad drew criticism from many Armenians and Jews because it praised Turkey for its "democratic and secular ideals" (see Jewish Journal editorial and article in November 13 issue and letter to the editor and op-ed piece in this issue). Critics such as Harvard Professor James Russell, himself a Jew who teaches Armenian studies, were appalled by the ad's content since Turkey has never acknowledged the systematic genocide of Armenians living within its borders in the early part of the century. Unlike modern Germany, modern Turkey has made no reparations and still refuses to admit the historically documented events.

The ad notwithstanding, Zakim vowed the continued support for the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in studies covered by ADL-sponsored Holocaust education. As he explained, Holocaust education in this country offers many students the only exposure they will ever have to the facts of the Armenian Genocide. He also
emphasized the commitment of all three organizations to bringing human rights issues to the table in dealings with the nation of Turkey. "The ADL and the other Jewish organizations believe that through the continually improving relationship between Israel and Turkey, the opportunity for dialogue about important issues like human rights and the need for Turkey to further democratize will be more effectively raised.".

Zakim referred to Abraham Foxman, national ADL director, saying that since Foxman is a Holocaust survivor himself, he "is extremely sensitive to the issues of what happens when people stand by, when they don't acknowledge their past, and they don't deal with the issues that remain today." However, Foxman's own remarks to The Jewish Journal were that Turkey "has a magnificent history of tolerance" and the conflict is
"between the Armenians and the Turks. They will hopefully someday resolve it." These statements were viewed as inflammatory and myopic by some in the Jewish and Armenian communities.

Both critics and supporters of the ad acknowledge the crucial support Turkey has given to Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East, and understand
the strategic role Turkey has played in Israel's security. However, many agree with Harut Sassounian who, in the most recent edition of The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, published in Watertown, lambasts the three organizations for placing the ad, writing "these Jewish groups are distorting the facts about Turkey; supporting one of the worst violators of human rights in the world; encouraging the Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide, thereby undermining their own credibility in countering the revisionists of the Holocaust; offending thousands of sensible Jews around the world who must be disgusted by the immoral public stand of these three Jewish groups; and unnecessarily antagonizing the Armenian-American community and Armenians everywhere against Jews."