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Israel Charny on Knesset and Armenian Genocide
asbarez
Friday, June 15th, 2012
Dr. Israel Charny
EDITOR'S NOTE: After Tuesday's discussion of the Armenian Genocide
bill in the Israeli Knesset, director of the Genocide Prevention
Network, Dr. Israel Charny published an in-depth analysis of the
event, which he termed `Israel Government Officially Calls On Knesset
To Recognize The Armenian Genocide.' Calling it an unprecedented move
by the Israeli government to endorse such recognition, Charny's
analysis provides an eyewitness account of the proceedings. Below is
Charny's article:
In an historic session of the Israeli Knesset, a wide ranging spectrum
of members of the Knesset, from 7 different political parties,
overwhelmingly endorsed recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The
session was led firmly and inspiringly by the Chair of the Knesset,
Reuven Rivlin , who himself spoke with profound feeling of both a
Jewish and an Israeli imperative to extend a long overdue recognition.
The issue is a moral one, he emphasized over and over again.
`We must make our voices heard when other nations are targeted for
destruction,' Rivlin stated. `Those who drafted the Final Solution for
the Jews figured the world would be silent as they were when the
Armenians were murdered. The Knesset cannot ignore this episode that
is factual. We cannot forgive nations who ignore our disaster and we
cannot ignore the disaster of other,' the Knesset Speaker added.
Although several speakers also reconstructed briefly familiar parts of
the traditional Israeli rhetoric of past years of realpolitik` e.g., a
chorus line that the government of Turkey in our time is not the
Ottoman Empire that perpetrated the genocide ' the old excuses were as
if album memories of the language that prevailed in the past to
explain and justify Israel's failure, and in all cases but one soon
gave way to clear-cut affirmations of the validity of the Armenian
Genocide and support for its recognition by the current government of
Israel.
This reporter had to hold his breath during the beginning of the
remarks by the official spokesman of the government before it became
clear how positive the official position had become for Israel to
recognize the Armenian Genocide at long last.
There was only one notable effort at a counter-proposal by a member of
the Knesset, Robert Tiviaev, who made a disingenuous effort to call
for a commission of historians to research `what really happened,' and
he pledged that if the commission then concluded that there had been a
genocide, `I will be the first to call for recognition.' Knesset Chair
Rivlin made short shrift of the speaker and ruled that there was no
point in generating a formal counter proposal and voting on it because
it was obvious from all the earlier speakers that an overwhelming
majority of the Knesset adamantly confirmed the historical
authenticity of the Armenian Genocide.
Rivlin also concluded there was no point in calling for a vote on the
resolution to recognize the genocide since the Knesset already had
voted last year, unanimously, in favor of recognition. It was on the
basis of that vote that the measure had been referred to the Knesset's
Education Committee that held a several hour session in December 2011.
Knesset Chair Rivlin also said that today's session was a confirmation
and extension of the original full Knesset resolution to recognize the
genocide, and he then added forcefully that he now expected a
continuation of deliberations in the Education Committee and a vote on
the resolution.
The government was officially represented at the hearing by MK Gilad
Erdan, a member of the National Union Party and currently Minister of
Environmental Affairs, who is described by some press as a close
friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was Erdan's role to
present the government's position (that will be described shortly) and
to answer officially on behalf of the government proposed
parliamentary motion not to recognize the genocide.
Erdan said clearly that the government had decided to recognize the
Armenian Genocide, and even used what is normally the code word
`holocaust' in his remarks to describe what was done to the Armenian
people. `I think it is definitely fitting that the Israeli government
formally recognize the holocaust perpetrated against the Armenian
people,' Erdan, Israel's environmental affairs minister said.
For this reporter, Erdan's remarks also reflected the struggles of the
long-since denialist Israeli government that is now coming around
dramatically in a welcome move to recognize the Armenian Genocide. At
first, Erdan made at least one totally inaccurate remark in defense of
the State of Israel when he said, `The State of Israel has never
denied the [Armenian Genocide]. On the contrary, we deplore the
genocide.' Erdan also temporized briefly about the meaning of the word
`genocide' when he noted that, `Not everyone uses the same dictionary
when they refer to `genocide'¦' Yet in the end ` though this reporter
thought somewhat nervously and hurriedly ` Erdan announced
unambiguously that he was conveying the government's official
position. First of all, he said on behalf of the government that, `One
must support full open discussion of the issue.' He also went on to
refer to a deeper meaning of the Armenian Genocide for mankind and to
link the meaning of the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust of the
Jewish people: `The government notes that mankind has not learned the
full meanings of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.' And finally
Erdan announced the Israeli government calls for formal recognition of
the Armenian Genocide which, as noted earlier, Erdan now characterized
with the word `holocaust:'
GPN Explanation and Analysis
Unlike the procedure in the US Congress, the Israel legislative
sequence calls first for a vote in the plenum, and given a positive
vote then the proposed resolution is referred for a hearing in one of
the Knesset committees. Now, given a further positive vote in the
committee, the measure returns once again to the plenum for three
readings and a vote on each reading. At the successful conclusion of
this process, the resolution becomes a legal decision of the Knesset.
In the case of the bill to recognize the Armenian Genocide, it is
known that if the government maneuvers to send the bill to the
secretive Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, the bill will
most likely be killed ` and no information on who said what and `who
done it' may ever be forthcoming. When the present resolution was sent
last Fall to the Education Committee, whose hearings are public, it
was a major step toward a possible recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. The December hearing in the Education Committee was widely
hailed in Israel as the first-ever extended consideration of the
genocide in Israel's legislature.
However ` a very big however ` as reported by GPN at the time, after
several hours of a rich and quite moving session, the Chair of the
Education Committee at the time, Alex Miller, a member of Knesset for
the Yisrael Beitenu Party that is headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman (the Foreign Ministry continued in its traditional
opposition to recognize the genocide) as if broke the spell of the
session that overall would clearly have produced a vote for
recognition, and announced preemptively that the session was over.
Bang! Miller then promised that there would be a continuation session
in the future, but in fact has never made a move to schedule such a
session, and GPN has learned privately over these months from the
leaders of the Armenian community in Israel that Miller has said that
he refuses to convene such a session.
It now remains to be seen whether the government will act on its newly
announced support of the recognition by working to have the Knesset
send the measure once again to the Education Committee for a
continuation of the hearing ` there will be a new Chair of the
Education Committee in the coming weeks.
What is clear is that Knesset Chair Reuven Rivlin will do everything
in his power in the behind-the-scene decision-making process to have
the bill referred back to the Education Committee, but we do not know
how to evaluate the range of his influence.
If the government arranges for the bill to go to the secretive
committee where it is likely to be killed or in any other way stops
the unfolding of the full process, we will know that the statement
made by the government's spokesman on June 12 was still another
maneuver in the history of Israeli realpolitik ` notwithstanding the
fact the even this statement itself represents a major precedent in
the tortured process that has taken place in Israel over so many
years.
One puzzle for this reporter in the day following the hearing is that
so much of the press in Israel and in the U.S. too failed to report
loudly and clearly what for us is the very big news ` and therefore
GPN's headline. The Government of Israel did state officially that it
supports recognition. Wow. As I reviewed press today, I discovered to
my amazement that most missed the point. Haaretz in Hebrew didn't even
report the story of the hearing. The English edition of Haaretz this
morning featured the hearing as its lead Page One story but still
didn't convey the main point of the victory. Neither did the Jerusalem
Post or the Los Angeles Times in their fairly full stories. One minor
new service in israel, Arutz Sheva, did publish a small statement that
the Minister Erdan `spoke for the government¦' and quoted him saying
in the first person (which could be one source of the confusion that
has been showing up as to who he represented), `I believe it would be
appropriate for the government to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.'
In Istanbul, the newspaper Today's Zaman got it more correctly than
some of the major Israeli papers and quoted the minister basically
correctly, BUT added that he said Israel's government had not changed
its policy, and in general erred very badly in saying the hearing was
initiated in response to this minister's remark rather than that the
minister came as the official government representative to the hearing
initiated by the Knesset. The one source we have found so far that got
it really right was the Chicago Tribune which clearly credited Erdan
as speaking for the government.
Why so much clouding of information? At the moment GPN's analysis is
that it's a whopper of a correction for Israel to make after so many
years and its hard to believe. As we reported, even the minister
seemed nervously unsure!
In spite of the clear risks of being very wrong, GPN's editor-reporter
now predicts that this bill to recognize the Armenian Genocide will go
the full route and will be approved by the Israeli Knesset.
Turkey Fails to Implement European Court Ruling, Dink Lawyer Says
ISTANBUL'Dink family's lawyer Fethiye Ã?etin wrote a letter to the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, arguing that the
Turkish government had failed to implement any serious, concrete or
frank steps to execute the verdict issued by the European Court of
Human Rights and that it rewarded the responsible parties by promoting
rather than trying them in a court of law, bianet.org reported.
The Turkish government updated its action plan of June 27, 2011 once
again on Oct. 19, 2011 due to the finalization of the European Court's
verdict on Dec. 14, 2010, she said, adding that both action plans
included contemporary developments under the titles of independent and
general measures and ongoing trials rather than the verdict's
execution.
`The written contents of the government's action plan clearly indicate
they took no concrete or serious steps to execute the verdict. The
government did not attempt anything positive since the time of the
last action plan either,' Fethiye Ã?etin said.
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the chief editor of the
Armenian weekly Agos, was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007 in broad daylight
before his office in Istanbul's Å?iÅ?li district.
`The[action plan elucidated at length over measures allegedly taken,
ongoing trials and investigations not yet complete, but it divulged no
concrete information over the execution of the European Court's
verdict on Dink or a renewal of the trial,' Ã?etin said in her letter.
`The government did not choose to opt for remission to execute the
verdict, failed to bring those responsible before justice and
continued its rhetoric and actions intended to pave the way for new
violations by reproducing the same structure that spawned the
violations in the first place,' she said.
The ECHR had convicted Turkey of violating the second article of the
European Convention on Human Rights over the right to life, the 10th
article on the freedom of speech and the 13th article over the right
to an effective remedy in the lawsuit filed by the Dink family.
A court had sentenced Dink's murderer Ogün Samast to a total of 22
years and 10 months in prison on charges of `premeditated murder' and
`possession of unlicensed weapons.'Instigator Yasin Hayal also
received a life sentence, while Erhan Tuncel was acquitted. All the
defendants, however, were acquitted of charges of membership in an
illegal organization due to lack of evidence, and a number of
officials implicated in the affair also received promotions.
asbarez
Friday, June 15th, 2012
Dr. Israel Charny
EDITOR'S NOTE: After Tuesday's discussion of the Armenian Genocide
bill in the Israeli Knesset, director of the Genocide Prevention
Network, Dr. Israel Charny published an in-depth analysis of the
event, which he termed `Israel Government Officially Calls On Knesset
To Recognize The Armenian Genocide.' Calling it an unprecedented move
by the Israeli government to endorse such recognition, Charny's
analysis provides an eyewitness account of the proceedings. Below is
Charny's article:
In an historic session of the Israeli Knesset, a wide ranging spectrum
of members of the Knesset, from 7 different political parties,
overwhelmingly endorsed recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The
session was led firmly and inspiringly by the Chair of the Knesset,
Reuven Rivlin , who himself spoke with profound feeling of both a
Jewish and an Israeli imperative to extend a long overdue recognition.
The issue is a moral one, he emphasized over and over again.
`We must make our voices heard when other nations are targeted for
destruction,' Rivlin stated. `Those who drafted the Final Solution for
the Jews figured the world would be silent as they were when the
Armenians were murdered. The Knesset cannot ignore this episode that
is factual. We cannot forgive nations who ignore our disaster and we
cannot ignore the disaster of other,' the Knesset Speaker added.
Although several speakers also reconstructed briefly familiar parts of
the traditional Israeli rhetoric of past years of realpolitik` e.g., a
chorus line that the government of Turkey in our time is not the
Ottoman Empire that perpetrated the genocide ' the old excuses were as
if album memories of the language that prevailed in the past to
explain and justify Israel's failure, and in all cases but one soon
gave way to clear-cut affirmations of the validity of the Armenian
Genocide and support for its recognition by the current government of
Israel.
This reporter had to hold his breath during the beginning of the
remarks by the official spokesman of the government before it became
clear how positive the official position had become for Israel to
recognize the Armenian Genocide at long last.
There was only one notable effort at a counter-proposal by a member of
the Knesset, Robert Tiviaev, who made a disingenuous effort to call
for a commission of historians to research `what really happened,' and
he pledged that if the commission then concluded that there had been a
genocide, `I will be the first to call for recognition.' Knesset Chair
Rivlin made short shrift of the speaker and ruled that there was no
point in generating a formal counter proposal and voting on it because
it was obvious from all the earlier speakers that an overwhelming
majority of the Knesset adamantly confirmed the historical
authenticity of the Armenian Genocide.
Rivlin also concluded there was no point in calling for a vote on the
resolution to recognize the genocide since the Knesset already had
voted last year, unanimously, in favor of recognition. It was on the
basis of that vote that the measure had been referred to the Knesset's
Education Committee that held a several hour session in December 2011.
Knesset Chair Rivlin also said that today's session was a confirmation
and extension of the original full Knesset resolution to recognize the
genocide, and he then added forcefully that he now expected a
continuation of deliberations in the Education Committee and a vote on
the resolution.
The government was officially represented at the hearing by MK Gilad
Erdan, a member of the National Union Party and currently Minister of
Environmental Affairs, who is described by some press as a close
friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was Erdan's role to
present the government's position (that will be described shortly) and
to answer officially on behalf of the government proposed
parliamentary motion not to recognize the genocide.
Erdan said clearly that the government had decided to recognize the
Armenian Genocide, and even used what is normally the code word
`holocaust' in his remarks to describe what was done to the Armenian
people. `I think it is definitely fitting that the Israeli government
formally recognize the holocaust perpetrated against the Armenian
people,' Erdan, Israel's environmental affairs minister said.
For this reporter, Erdan's remarks also reflected the struggles of the
long-since denialist Israeli government that is now coming around
dramatically in a welcome move to recognize the Armenian Genocide. At
first, Erdan made at least one totally inaccurate remark in defense of
the State of Israel when he said, `The State of Israel has never
denied the [Armenian Genocide]. On the contrary, we deplore the
genocide.' Erdan also temporized briefly about the meaning of the word
`genocide' when he noted that, `Not everyone uses the same dictionary
when they refer to `genocide'¦' Yet in the end ` though this reporter
thought somewhat nervously and hurriedly ` Erdan announced
unambiguously that he was conveying the government's official
position. First of all, he said on behalf of the government that, `One
must support full open discussion of the issue.' He also went on to
refer to a deeper meaning of the Armenian Genocide for mankind and to
link the meaning of the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust of the
Jewish people: `The government notes that mankind has not learned the
full meanings of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.' And finally
Erdan announced the Israeli government calls for formal recognition of
the Armenian Genocide which, as noted earlier, Erdan now characterized
with the word `holocaust:'
GPN Explanation and Analysis
Unlike the procedure in the US Congress, the Israel legislative
sequence calls first for a vote in the plenum, and given a positive
vote then the proposed resolution is referred for a hearing in one of
the Knesset committees. Now, given a further positive vote in the
committee, the measure returns once again to the plenum for three
readings and a vote on each reading. At the successful conclusion of
this process, the resolution becomes a legal decision of the Knesset.
In the case of the bill to recognize the Armenian Genocide, it is
known that if the government maneuvers to send the bill to the
secretive Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, the bill will
most likely be killed ` and no information on who said what and `who
done it' may ever be forthcoming. When the present resolution was sent
last Fall to the Education Committee, whose hearings are public, it
was a major step toward a possible recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. The December hearing in the Education Committee was widely
hailed in Israel as the first-ever extended consideration of the
genocide in Israel's legislature.
However ` a very big however ` as reported by GPN at the time, after
several hours of a rich and quite moving session, the Chair of the
Education Committee at the time, Alex Miller, a member of Knesset for
the Yisrael Beitenu Party that is headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman (the Foreign Ministry continued in its traditional
opposition to recognize the genocide) as if broke the spell of the
session that overall would clearly have produced a vote for
recognition, and announced preemptively that the session was over.
Bang! Miller then promised that there would be a continuation session
in the future, but in fact has never made a move to schedule such a
session, and GPN has learned privately over these months from the
leaders of the Armenian community in Israel that Miller has said that
he refuses to convene such a session.
It now remains to be seen whether the government will act on its newly
announced support of the recognition by working to have the Knesset
send the measure once again to the Education Committee for a
continuation of the hearing ` there will be a new Chair of the
Education Committee in the coming weeks.
What is clear is that Knesset Chair Reuven Rivlin will do everything
in his power in the behind-the-scene decision-making process to have
the bill referred back to the Education Committee, but we do not know
how to evaluate the range of his influence.
If the government arranges for the bill to go to the secretive
committee where it is likely to be killed or in any other way stops
the unfolding of the full process, we will know that the statement
made by the government's spokesman on June 12 was still another
maneuver in the history of Israeli realpolitik ` notwithstanding the
fact the even this statement itself represents a major precedent in
the tortured process that has taken place in Israel over so many
years.
One puzzle for this reporter in the day following the hearing is that
so much of the press in Israel and in the U.S. too failed to report
loudly and clearly what for us is the very big news ` and therefore
GPN's headline. The Government of Israel did state officially that it
supports recognition. Wow. As I reviewed press today, I discovered to
my amazement that most missed the point. Haaretz in Hebrew didn't even
report the story of the hearing. The English edition of Haaretz this
morning featured the hearing as its lead Page One story but still
didn't convey the main point of the victory. Neither did the Jerusalem
Post or the Los Angeles Times in their fairly full stories. One minor
new service in israel, Arutz Sheva, did publish a small statement that
the Minister Erdan `spoke for the government¦' and quoted him saying
in the first person (which could be one source of the confusion that
has been showing up as to who he represented), `I believe it would be
appropriate for the government to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.'
In Istanbul, the newspaper Today's Zaman got it more correctly than
some of the major Israeli papers and quoted the minister basically
correctly, BUT added that he said Israel's government had not changed
its policy, and in general erred very badly in saying the hearing was
initiated in response to this minister's remark rather than that the
minister came as the official government representative to the hearing
initiated by the Knesset. The one source we have found so far that got
it really right was the Chicago Tribune which clearly credited Erdan
as speaking for the government.
Why so much clouding of information? At the moment GPN's analysis is
that it's a whopper of a correction for Israel to make after so many
years and its hard to believe. As we reported, even the minister
seemed nervously unsure!
In spite of the clear risks of being very wrong, GPN's editor-reporter
now predicts that this bill to recognize the Armenian Genocide will go
the full route and will be approved by the Israeli Knesset.
Turkey Fails to Implement European Court Ruling, Dink Lawyer Says
ISTANBUL'Dink family's lawyer Fethiye Ã?etin wrote a letter to the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, arguing that the
Turkish government had failed to implement any serious, concrete or
frank steps to execute the verdict issued by the European Court of
Human Rights and that it rewarded the responsible parties by promoting
rather than trying them in a court of law, bianet.org reported.
The Turkish government updated its action plan of June 27, 2011 once
again on Oct. 19, 2011 due to the finalization of the European Court's
verdict on Dec. 14, 2010, she said, adding that both action plans
included contemporary developments under the titles of independent and
general measures and ongoing trials rather than the verdict's
execution.
`The written contents of the government's action plan clearly indicate
they took no concrete or serious steps to execute the verdict. The
government did not attempt anything positive since the time of the
last action plan either,' Fethiye Ã?etin said.
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the chief editor of the
Armenian weekly Agos, was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007 in broad daylight
before his office in Istanbul's Å?iÅ?li district.
`The[action plan elucidated at length over measures allegedly taken,
ongoing trials and investigations not yet complete, but it divulged no
concrete information over the execution of the European Court's
verdict on Dink or a renewal of the trial,' Ã?etin said in her letter.
`The government did not choose to opt for remission to execute the
verdict, failed to bring those responsible before justice and
continued its rhetoric and actions intended to pave the way for new
violations by reproducing the same structure that spawned the
violations in the first place,' she said.
The ECHR had convicted Turkey of violating the second article of the
European Convention on Human Rights over the right to life, the 10th
article on the freedom of speech and the 13th article over the right
to an effective remedy in the lawsuit filed by the Dink family.
A court had sentenced Dink's murderer Ogün Samast to a total of 22
years and 10 months in prison on charges of `premeditated murder' and
`possession of unlicensed weapons.'Instigator Yasin Hayal also
received a life sentence, while Erhan Tuncel was acquitted. All the
defendants, however, were acquitted of charges of membership in an
illegal organization due to lack of evidence, and a number of
officials implicated in the affair also received promotions.