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Israel's Recognition of Suffering, Far Too Late

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  • Israel's Recognition of Suffering, Far Too Late

    The Jewish Daily Forward
    Dec 30 2011



    Recognition of Suffering, Far Too Late

    Israel Only Marks Armenian Genocide To Settle Turkey Score


    By Larry Derfner
    Published December 30, 2011, issue of January 06, 2012.


    Israel is definitely making progress on the subject of the Armenian
    genocide. In late December, during the Knesset's first ever open-door
    debate on the issue, nobody was reported to have questioned whether
    the deliberate killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-'16 should be
    called a genocide, nor whether the Ottoman Empire was the guilty
    party, nor whether modern-day Turkey inherited that guilt. For once,
    all this was taken for granted, as it has been for decades by
    virtually all historians, notably Holocaust and genocide historians.

    `As a people and as a country, we stand and face the whole world with
    the highest moral demand that Holocaust denial is something human
    history cannot accept. Therefore, we cannot deny the tragedy of
    others,' Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin told the Education Committee.



    Hear, hear. But this is a far cry from the position taken, for
    instance, in 2001 by then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who told a
    Turkish newspaper that the Armenian genocide was `a matter for
    historians to decide,' and that Israel `reject[s] attempts to create a
    similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations.'

    No question, Israel has come a long way. When the U.S. Holocaust
    Museum opened in 1993, Armenian-Americans lobbying for inclusion of
    the Armenian genocide were met with a counter campaign organized by
    Turkish officials and backed, according to museum officials, by the
    efforts of the Israeli embassy.


    For decades, official Israel not only `stood silent' about the
    Armenian genocide, it deployed the American Jewish Committee,
    Anti-Defamation League and other lobbying groups to back up White
    House efforts to ensure that Congress stood silent, too. As late as
    2007, the ADL fired a senior official for challenging Abraham Foxman's
    opposition to a move in Congress for recognition of the genocide.

    `Frankly, I'm pretty disgusted,' Yehuda Bauer, Israel's leading
    Holocaust scholar, told me in 2005, when only a few academics and
    liberal politicians were speaking out against Israel's role as
    blocking back for Turkey's policy of denial. `I think that my
    government preferred economic and political relations with Turkey to
    the truth.'

    That was then, but this is now, and now Israel's relations with Turkey
    are ice cold, so there's a lot less to lose by recognizing the
    Armenian genocide, and a great deal of satisfaction to be gained. `How
    many times can they recall their ambassador?' Knesset Member Uri
    Orbach pointed out.

    Shameless hypocrisy, that's the only term for this Israeli spectacle.
    The Knesset said nothing about the Armenian genocide all those years
    when Israel wanted to preserve its alliance with Turkey, and now it
    has the gall to pretend that it's raising the issue `so that no one in
    the world will think [genocide] can happen again,' according to
    Knesset Member Arye Eldad. The only Knesset members who come to this
    issue with clean hands are those of Meretz, which over the years stood
    alone among the political parties in demanding recognition of the
    genocide and Turkey's culpability for it.

    I don't know whose hypocrisy is worse - the Knesset's or that of the
    Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry, which oppose
    recognition on the grounds that it will cause more bad blood with
    Turkey, something Israel doesn't need. National Security Adviser
    Ya'akov Amidror reportedly told Israeli diplomats that now is the time
    to `reduce tensions with Turkey, not pour more oil on the fire.'

    Funny, but over the last two years, this consideration didn't deter
    the government from 1) sitting the Turkish ambassador on a low chair
    to humiliate him in front of the TV cameras; 2) commandeering the
    Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on its way to Gaza, which ended with the
    killings of nine Turks aboard; 3) refusing to apologize for the
    killings; and 4) just this last Thursday, canceling a $141 million
    sale to Turkey of air force intelligence equipment.

    Each of those moves was apparently worth deepening the rift with
    Turkey. But not an attempt to end Israel's collusion in the denial of
    the 20th century's first genocide, whose early disappearance from
    history was cited by Hitler as proof that he could get away with a
    genocide of his own.

    In the end, though, I agree with the Prime Minister's Office and
    Foreign Ministry: Israel should not do a 180-degree turn and suddenly
    recognize the Armenian genocide, especially not now. Like this week's
    `historic' Knesset hearing, it would be too transparently false, too
    embarrassing.

    Israel has stood silent this long; let it remain silent.

    http://forward.com/articles/148750/

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