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ISTANBUL: Israel's knesset maneuvering to exploit tragic 1915 events

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  • ISTANBUL: Israel's knesset maneuvering to exploit tragic 1915 events

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Jan 1 2012

    Israel's knesset maneuvering to exploit tragic 1915 events


    1 January 2012 / GÃ-ZDE NUR DONAT / MAHÄ°R ZEYNALOV, Ä°STANBUL

    The global Israeli lobby has significantly lessened its previously
    staunch support of Turkey in preventing foreign parliaments from
    labeling mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans in
    1915 as genocide, but there is little evidence that current tensions
    between Turkey and Israel will ramp up the lobby's efforts to get the
    Armenian massacres recognized as genocide.
    Israeli parliametary commission started discussing Armenian killings
    of genocide following a controversial bill the French parliament
    endorsed last week.

    This recent development reinforced an idea that the Israeli lobby is
    supportive of the Armenian lobby in pushing parliaments to recognize
    Armenian killings as genocide.

    The lower house of the French parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor
    of a bill that made it a crime to deny that the World War I-era mass
    killings of Armenians constituted genocide. Turkey announced a set of
    punitive measures against France, halting official contacts, recalling
    its ambassador and canceling planned political, economic meetings.
    Days later, a committee in the Israeli parliament began debating the
    Armenian claims of genocide.

    The Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee, headed by
    lawmaker Alex Miller, began discussing the issue at a public hearing.
    The session was also attended by Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin.

    The committee considered a proposal to designate a memorial day for
    the killings and recognize them as genocide.

    Rivlin last Monday denied that the move was in response to events in
    the United States or France and said the Knesset has been holding
    similar discussions for years.

    A strategy for the recognition of the `Armenian genocide' embraced by
    the powerful Armenian lobby around the world has been pursued through
    an array of parliamentary initiatives, mostly in Western nations as it
    is an effective way of irritating Turkey. Support for Turkey by the
    Israeli lobby against similar initiatives was based on the
    anticipation that Turkey would maintain its benign foreign policy
    toward Israel despite its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.

    It has become increasingly clear that the Israeli lobby will cease its
    support for Turkey in blocking recognition of Armenian claims of
    genocide. But to what extent the Israeli lobby will be supportive of
    the Armenian genocide claims still remains unknown.

    Israeli diplomats in Ä°stanbul said that whereas Israel believes the
    events surrounding the 1915 incidents should be debated, it is also of
    the opinion that such a debate should be held in an open forum, an
    academic atmosphere, based on facts and research.

    The diplomats said it is not the position of Israel that any such
    research should be assisted by political discourse.

    `I think it's fair to say that pro-Israel activists and supporters in
    [US] Congress will now feel less reticence about backing measures
    commemorating the genocide of Armenians,' Jonathon S. Tobin, senior
    online editor of the conservative Commentary magazine, said.

    He said most Jews, as well as most Americans in the past, were
    strongly inclined to back the Armenians but many held back out of
    respect for Turkey's alliance with Israel. Tobin noted that although
    befuddled as most were by what he called the Turkish government's
    aggressive stance on the issue, many thought that it made no sense to
    worsen relations with an ally for the sake of a century-old crime
    whose perpetrators are long dead.

    He added that this led to some intense conflicts within the Jewish
    community between those who thought a reluctance to back the Armenians
    was cynical and those dedicated to fostering friendship with Turkey.

    Soli Ã-zel from Ä°stanbul's Kadir Has University said the Israeli
    Education Ministry earlier wanted to list the 1915 events as genocide
    in history textbooks but that it was later decided not to do so. Ã-zel
    warned that escalating the push of the Israeli lobby for recognition
    of claims of an Armenian genocide won't be helpful to Turkish-Israeli
    relations.

    In recent years, former parliamentarian Haim Oron repeatedly attempted
    to raise the issue with the Knesset's education panel, with government
    officials moving to cancel the debate. Last year, amid deterioration
    in Turkish-Israeli ties, Oron was granted approval to discuss the
    alleged genocide in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
    meetings.

    In 2007, the Knesset decided to shelve a proposal for a parliamentary
    discussion on the Armenian genocide, in compliance with then Prime
    Minister Ehud Olmert's request.

    Kerim Balcı, editor-in-chief of Turkish Review, said that although the
    Israeli initiative last week was faced again with the Israeli
    government's intervention, the Jewish state would continue its bluff
    with Turkey over the genocide claims.

    `Armenian claims of genocide have been a long-standing instrument at
    the hands of different Israeli governments against Turkey,' Balcı
    said, adding that when former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit in
    2002 claimed that Israel carried out genocide against Palestinians,
    the Israeli lobby in Washington stated that they would stop supporting
    Turkey in their efforts to block Armenian genocide claims to be
    debated in the US Congress.

    Turkish-Israeli relations were badly damaged last year after Israeli
    naval commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara carrying humanitarian aid to
    Gaza to breach an Israeli-imposed naval blockade, leaving nine Turkish
    civilians, including an American citizen, dead. Turkey demands an
    official apology, compensation for families of the victims and an end
    to the Gaza blockade. Israel offered only its regrets and says its
    soldiers acted in self-defense.

    Tobin stressed that it is needless to say that the Turkish
    government's actions in the past few years have undermined the resolve
    of those who had opposed Armenian genocide commemoration for the sake
    of friendship with Turkey.

    `Given the sense of betrayal that many pro-Israel Americans -- Jewish
    and non-Jewish alike -- feel regarding Turkey's policies, the chances
    that many will lift a finger to oppose an Armenian genocide measure
    are slim. The moral dilemma that Turkey's close ties to Israel posed
    for those considering the issue is now gone. Where this issue once was
    considered one of the most agonizing decisions facing community
    leaders, it is now an easy choice,' he concluded.




    From: A. Papazian
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