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A Kosher Lecture At A Kosher Armenian Dinner

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  • A Kosher Lecture At A Kosher Armenian Dinner

    A KOSHER LECTURE AT A KOSHER ARMENIAN DINNER

    EDITORIAL | AUGUST 1, 2013 1:29 PM
    ________________________________

    By Edmond Y. Azadian

    An announcement was sent to the media about a lecture to be delivered
    on August 18 at the Congregation B'nai Israel in Tustin, Calif. A
    prominent scholar in the person of Richard Hovannisian has been invited
    as the lecturer. The context and the format are both interesting to
    the academic community as well as the general public.

    The lecture will follow a "Kosher Armenian dinner" and will deal
    with the similarities and differences between the Jewish and Armenian
    genocides.

    When the historiography of the Armenian Genocide was still in its
    infancy, Hovannisian became one of the early pioneers on the topic
    driving the issue not only to the Armenian audience, but to an
    international audience. This latest undertaking is also directed at
    an audience whose sensitivity to the issue cannot be overestimated.

    Hovannisian is taking the Genocide discussion to the Jewish community,
    which is also traumatized and tormented with a catastrophic experience
    that befell Armenians early last century.

    Ever since the Jewish Holocaust, it has almost become a cliche to
    state that had the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide been punished,
    perhaps the Holocaust would have been avoided. But the cruel logic of
    history and politics is that human nature will not change and given
    the opportunity any dictator would become a Talaat, Hitler or Pol Pot.

    But by comparing the Armenian experience to the Jewish experience,
    some lessons could be learned by politicians, scholars and even by
    the nations affected and shaped by those historic events.

    There are similarities and differences between the two cases. The
    similarities are within the realm of cause and effect. The Ittihadist
    leadership blamed Armenians as traitors to the Ottoman Empire, just
    like Hitler blamed the Jews for all the ills of German society and
    determined to bring the Final Solution to Jewish existence in Europe.

    The dissimilarities are much more pronounced since the Armenians were
    exterminated in their own native land while the Jews met the same fate
    in an alien land. As a result of the Genocide, the Armenians lost 75
    percent of their population, along with their ancestral homeland of
    3,000 years. The Jews received a homeland as a direct consequence of
    the Holocaust. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 to grant a homeland
    to the Jews did not become a reality until 1948, when the Jews took
    their destiny into their own hands and many European Jews sought to
    live lives as Israelis, not a fearful minority in Europe.

    The surviving Armenians lost their homes, houses of worship and all
    their belongings and at best, they were granted some charity in host
    countries, while Israel became the beneficiary of the compensation
    owed to the victims of the Holocaust, despite the fact that it did
    not exist as a sovereign country during the Holocaust.

    Genocide scholars will certainly dig more similarities and differences
    in these to historic cases. But mutual education is necessary for
    both nations to understand each other and stand together as a bulwark
    against any future threat of ethnic cleansing.

    Many serious and righteous Jewish scholars, including Israel Charny,
    Yair Auron and others, maintain that the denial of the Armenian
    Genocide by the Israeli government erodes the moral foundations of
    the Holocaust itself.

    These Jewish scholars consider it a moral imperative for the Israeli
    government to recognize the Armenian Genocide, over and above
    the political expediency of placating the Turks. The louder these
    righteous voices resonate, the better the chances are for recognition
    of the Armenian Genocide, which eventually will pave the way for
    the US government to join the fray. It is no secret to anyone that
    the impediment to that recognition comes from the people of Abraham
    Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and some pro-Israeli lobbyists
    in Washington. Whatever these scholars of high integrity believe and
    profess, does not necessarily translate into political currency.

    Every time Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan makes a blunder by
    accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people,
    rumors circulate and actual parliamentary hearings are held in Israeli
    parliament in preparation of the Jewish State's recognition of the
    Armenian Genocide. Those inconsequential rumors evaporate and the
    hearings are discontinued, as soon as Ankara signals a conciliatory
    note.

    The most outrageous incident took place when Israeli President Shimon
    Peres visited Ankara and announced that the murder of Armenians in
    the Ottoman Empire did not amount to genocide. That was a political
    compliment presented to his Turkish hosts with the blood of 1.5
    million Armenian martyrs. However, history is full of ironies. Not
    too much later, Mr. Erdogan faced Mr. Peres in Davos, Switzerland and
    walked away from a dispute shouting in the Israeli president's face
    that his country was committing genocide against Palestinians. The
    Armenian victims insulted by Mr. Peres were vindicated inadvertently
    by the Turkish leader.

    Mr. Foxman and his ilk maintain that holding the Armenian Genocide
    or any other mass murder on the level of the Holocaust will chip
    away the political capital of the Holocaust. However, unless the
    Jewish Holocaust and the genocides perpetrated against Armenians,
    Cambodians and Rwandans, among an unfortunately long list, are treated
    as integral dimensions of the universal pain, they will be devalued
    as moral and historical cases.

    We are certain that Prof. Richard Hovannisian will drive the point
    to his Jewish audience, as have other Genocide scholars, including
    Vahakn Dadrian, Taner Akcam, Robert Melson and others have done.

    In the meantime, we hope Professor Hovannisian will enjoy his
    well-deserved Kosher Armenian Dinner.

    - See more at:
    http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2013/08/01/a-kosher-lecture-at-a-kosher-armenian-dinner/#sthash.4p0LSCOX.dpuf

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