The true fascination of the ADL’s shifting line on the Armenian genocide of 90 years ago has little to do with Turkey or Armenians. It is about the Nakba, Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians in 1948.
The issues surrounding Armenian genocide absolutely echo the issues surrounding the Nakba. What do historians say? And when must we in public life acknowledge the message of the historians?
The ADL fears recognizing the Armenian genocide not just because it could alienate Turkey, but because it could open the floodgates on a popular understanding in the U.S. of the suffering of the Palestinians. The Nakba has been a matter of historical record for many years now. But when will it enter public consciousness?
This is the great threat posed by Walt and Mearsheimer’s book. Their paper stated that the "moral" reasons for the U.S. supporting Israel were undermined somewhat by its treatment of the Palestinians, and cited the ‘48 ethnic cleansing. Their book is only likely to expand upon this chapter…
P.S. Commenters nailed me for mischaracterizing the ADL’s positions. I think they are right re the nuance; that the ADL should be congratulated for using the word "genocide" at last rather than its earlier language, "massacres and atrocities." Apologies to all, including Abe Foxman.
Related posts:
- Bernard Lewis Is Said to Deny Armenian Genocide and Blame the ‘Tragedy’ on Armenians
- ADL Says Protecting Israel Justifies Not Memorializing Armenian Genocide
- AP: Israel factor could derail Armenian genocide resolution
- Is House committee vote on Armenian genocide tit-for-tat for Turkey’s Gaza criticism?
- ‘JPost’ and ‘BBC’ say the lobby worked against Armenian genocide resolution before
{ 11 comments }
Phil,
FYI, the Walt/Mearsheimer book is now out. I just saw it at the downtown Borders in DC.
I have hinted in earlier posts that I am personally rather suspicious of the suddenly emerging moral sensitivities of types such as Dershowitz and that I think these have much to do with increasing Islamic influence in Turkey.
In a long and fascinating article in the London Review of Books of 8 Febr.2001 (Vol. 23 No.3), entitled "The G.word", Mark Mazower tried to pinpoint the ultimate reason why modern Turkey is willing to acknowledge massacres (for which it put a number of people on trial after 1918) but goes beyond itself at the accusation of genocide. This is what he had to say:
"It seems to me that there is something else at stake, less materialistic and more intimately bound up with official Turkish self-perceptions. If today's authorities find an expression of regret beyond them it is not so much because they wish to protect the reputation of their forefathers, but more generally because they are highly sensitive to their country's image in the world, and recognise, in a way most Europeans do not, just how anti-Turkish sentiment in the West has been for centuries.
The redoubtable traveller Edith Durham once remarked that Europe was quick to condemn Muslim violence towards Christians but remained indifferent when the tables were turned. Even today, no connection is made between the genocide of the Armenians and Muslim civilian losses: the millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and the Russian Empire through the long 19th century remain part of Europe's own forgotten past.
Indeed, the official Turkish response is invariably to remind critics of this fact – an unconvincing justification for genocide, to be sure, but an expression of underlying resentment. To acknowledge the mass murder of the Armenians may run the risk of confirming the one-sided European stereotype of the 'barbarous Turk'.
Turkey's prestige, on this line of argument, is best served by resolute denial, even though the consequence is that the genocide has a significance for the modern Republic that acceptance would help to efface."
The Turkish government did not consider the genocide of the Armenians in any way justified. It tried and executed the responsible officials quite efficiently.
Turks are reluctant to admit that genocide of Armenians took place because of the efforts of ethnic Ashkenazi Americans to create a sort of Holocaust religion to block discussion of Zionist genocide plans during the 19th century and ongoing genocide throughout the 20th and 21st century.
Many Turkish intellectuals feel that admitting genocide will create an equation between Nazi Germany and the Ottoman Empire, and that the equivalence will then be used against Turks and Turkey. (When I read the latest crop of Islamophobic and Arabophobic nonsense that comes out of Frontpage Magazine with regard to the Ottoman Empire or out of the JCPA with regard to Sudan, I cannot argue against the Turkish position.)
In point of fact the actual history of mass murders of Jews during WW2 does not correspond to the Zionist or Hollywood version of the Holocaust, and the Lemkin/International definition of genocide was supposed to include the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Germany from 1933-39 when there were no mass murder — a crime that was considerably less brutal than the 1947-8 Palestinian ethnic cleansing, which included planned mass killing and mass rapes.
Genocide of Muslim populations took place throughout the Balkans and the Russian Empire throughout the 19th century — I have seen picture postcards that celebrate the expulsion of Muslims. (In Greece the Albanian population was driven out regardless of religion.) And of course the Nakba/Holoexaleipsis was planned in cold-blood during the 19th century when genocide was simply in the air of Eastern Europe.
Only when we Americans start discussing Zionist genocide and the Holocaust honestly with some connection to reality, will we be able to have rational discussion of the history of Armenians and current events in the ME and the horn of Africa.
It means that we will have to send the Office of Special Investigations to arrest Zionist genocidaires like Rahm Emanuel's father, Foxman, Barry Shrage, Dennis Ross, Senator Lieberman, Alan Dershowitz, Ruth Wisse, Les Wexner, Martin Peretz, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, the Wurmsers and the whole plethora of important figures in the formal and informal open and covert Zionist Lobby.
These people are probably also guilty of conspiracy against rights and seditious conspiracy which are if I am not mistaken Title 17 violations of the US criminal code.
If we cannot arrest, try and convict Zionist colonizers and Zionist Americans for the ongoing murder of Arab Palestine, we cannot criticize anyone genocide, and I have to reiterate that the Turkish government arrested and executed the Ottoman officials responsible for the genocide of Armenians.
Who has the moral high ground?
Joechem:
Surely the arrests can't stop there. Once the Jews, other than Phil or Noam Chomsky I guess, are expunged from America should not the Christian Zio-nazis be right behind them. Only then will America be free, is it not so. Please respond
Martillo – Pearlman has a point here. You sound like the sort of person that would have us kill off an entire group for the behavior of some individuals. If we were to apply that same standard to you and yours, would you sleep well at night. The more of your comments I read the more I understand why the Jews want to have a country where they can at least protect themselves from the likes of you.
Did I exclude Hagee from the list? I think he counts as an American Zionist.
In any case, I did not create this intellectual edifice of Taeterkeit (perpetrator-ness). If Germans are forever a Taetervolk (perpetrator-people) for the actions of absolutely and proportionately very few Germans, should not ethnic Ashkenazim be considered even more a Taetervolk for the actions of absolutely and proportionately very many Zionist and Soviet Ashkenazim?
Personally, I consider the idea crap even if Pearlman does not, but I can cite the sections of the US criminal code that I would allege the people that I listed would have violated. A lot of it is Title 17 Section 241 — which is bad enough but a lot is worse. And there is an immense amount of tax fraud.
In any case there are a lot of Zionist genocidaires in this country. If I remember the statute under which OSI operates, OSI should be pursuing them. Could the problem be that practically all the OSI officials are ethnic Ashkenazi Americans?
If ethnic Ashkenazi Americans officials in the Bush administration cook up a ridiculous case against HLF for transfering money to Zakat committees to help the impoverished, should we not be looking at the money transfered to Israel by American Zionist to carry out genocide under the international and Lemkin definitions?
And what are the likes of me? People that want to apply exactly the same standards to Jews and non-Jews. I consider such a goal tikun olam I can understand why a lot of racist ethnic Ashkenazi Americans and people like Rabbi Lerner would object.
BTW, I meant Title 18 not Title 17.
Some people hide behind their criminals. Some hide their criminals behind them.
Martillo wrote:
"The Turkish government did not consider the genocide of the Armenians in any way justified. It tried and executed the responsible officials quite efficiently"
I merely wrote that they were put on trial.
Apparently the main body responsible for the killings was the shadowy "Committee of Union and Progress" against whom the figurehead Sultan, the irrelevant parliament and even senior military commanders were powerless.
Yhe leading figures in this Committee were the Minister of War, Enver Pasha, the Grand Vizier and Minister of the Interior,Talaat Pasha, and Djemal Pasha.
These three at least escaped abroad. According to Mazower they all died within a few years, Talaat and Djemal at the hands of Armenian gunmen.
I misremembered the history of the trials and death sentence of Talaat Pasha, Enver Pasha and Jemal Pasha.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.237/current_category.50/affirmation_detail.html describes the conviction and death sentences by Turkish (really Ottoman) military tribunal.
Nice to see the Israelis know their place and are sucking up to the Ottomans.
Israel has not changed its position on the killing of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, President Shimon Peres assured the Turkish prime minister last week.
On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League announced that it considered the massacres to be genocide. It apologized for putting the Turkish people in a "difficult position" in a letter this weekend, the Turkish media reported.
In his conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Peres reiterated the Israeli position that Turkey and Armenia should resolve the dispute on the nature of the killings through dialogue. Jerusalem is careful not to refer to the killings as a genocide.
Following the ADL's statement, Turkey was feeling "disappointed with its friends," Erdogan said. President Peres told the Turkish prime minister that Israel does not control U.S. Jewish organizations, which pursue their own agendas.
Foreign Ministry sources told Haaretz that they believe that Peres' efforts and the calming actions of the Israeli embassy in Ankara have helped ease tensions over the ADL's statement.
The Turkish media reported over the weekend that ADL President Abraham Foxman sent Erdogan a letter stating the ADL has "utmost respect for the Turkish people."
"We had no intention to put the Turkish people or its leaders in a difficult position. I am writing this letter to you to express our sorrow over what we have caused for the leadership and people of Turkey in the past few days," Foxman's letter reportedly read.
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