PROTECTING THE GRAVELESS: Q&A
By Gabriel Sanders
Forward, NY
Feb 28 2008
This past fall, despite objections from both the White House and some
in the organized Jewish world, the House Foreign Affairs Committee
voted to allow a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide to go
before the House of Representatives. When the move led to mass protests
in Turkey and threats from Ankara to disrupt the American war effort
in Iraq, however, House leaders decided to table the measure.
French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy recently sat down with the
Forward’s Gabriel Sanders to discuss the question of Jews and the
recognition of the Armenian genocide – one of the topics the thinker
plans to cover in an upcoming lecture on the "state of world Jewry."
GABRIEL SANDERS: What is it that prompted you to turn your attention
to the question of the Armenian genocide?
BERNARD-HENRY LEVY: I was shocked by the withdrawal of the resolution
and was shocked that some Jews, because of fears connected to the
wellbeing of the State of Israel, were unwilling to endorse it. This
unwillingness on a matter where we Jews should be on the front lines
is for me a real heartbreaker. In my upcoming lecture, I will speak
about the meaning of the message of Judaism, which implies that we
are not only open to, but forced to be helpful to those like the
children of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide.
GS: As we reported in the paper last fall, the French public is
not unaware of the difficulties surrounding the question of genocide
recognition. In 2006, the French parliament passed a bill criminalizing
the denial of the Armenian Genocide, and Turkey then too threatened
to sever military ties. How did the French Jewish community react at
the time?
BHL: As with the American Jews, there was a concern for Israel.
Turkey is an ally and Israel does not have many allies. There is
also the tendency to believe in the singularity of the Holocaust. But
singularity does not mean that it was the only genocide, and precisely
because we – our parents – had to suffer the worst, we are obligated
to pay attention to the suffering of those in Rwanda and Armenia.
GS: When it comes to Israel, would you say that the French Jewish
community is universally supportive?
BHL: We may have our Noam Chomskys, but there is a real support – a
support that is as strong as in America, with perhaps a greater sense
of freedom when it comes to criticizing this or that government. I
myself am the greatest supporter of Israel you can imagine. Since ’67,
when as an 18-year-old I signed up as a parachutist, I have gone to
Israel during every one of its wars. And yet, 10 years ago, I felt free
to write, in a newspaper article that made some waves when it appeared
in France, that Israel’s two worst enemies were Arafat and Netanyahu.
GS: It seems to me that Jewish opinion on the genocide question
falls into two schools: those who feel that, when it comes to moral
questions, Jews are answerable to a higher standard than the world
at large and those who argue that Jews should be held to standard no
more high than the rest. Those belonging to this second group will
say that when Armenian allies – like, say, Iran – deny the truth of
the Holocaust, no one calls on the Armenians to speak up in the Jews’
name. And yet, when the roles are reversed, the Armenians expect the
Jews to support them. What do you make of this tension?
BHL: I don’t care what the Armenians expect. What I expect from
myself is faithfulness to the Jewish message, which is a message of
universality, and my neighbor’s lack of faithfulness in the idea of
universality does not give me the right not to be faithful myself. It
is the truth to say that there was a genocide in Armenia. It is the
truth to say that the denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey is a
reason for despair. It is the truth to say that I feel a kinship with
the sons and grandsons of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. I’m
not engaging in politics; I’m just trying to be faithful to the
message of my ancestors and the books in which I believe.
GS: There is an Armenian community in the United States. It is,
to a large extent, they who pushed for the genocide recognition bill.
Among the Armenians in America there is significant antisemitic
sentiment. What are we to make of that?
BHL: The black community in America can sometimes be antisemitic too.
Does this mean that we Jews have to become anti-black? Does this mean
we have to regret the part we played in the civil rights movement?
The sense of my life, personally, is to refuse the clash of memories,
the clash of victimhoods. ‘I am a victim. You are not a victim. I am
more a victim. You are less a victim.’ I hate that. First of all, we
must break the competition of victimhoods. Number two, you criticize
the fascists wherever they are and fight them, whether in the black
community, the Armenian community or anywhere. They are my enemies.
But we must refuse the perverse theory that because we are victims,
they cannot be. Compassion is not a cake, from which nothing is left
for others if you take too big a piece.
GS: To a certain degree, one could say that the Anti-Defamation
League’s Abraham Foxman, the Jewish figure who most vociferously
opposed the congressional resolution, found vindication. Though many
were surprised by the ferocity of Turkey’s response, he was not. Now,
is it your position that Turkey’s denial of the genocide is such an
affront that we need to challenge it regardless of the consequences?
Let’s say the resolution had gone forward, what is the worst that
could have happened?
BHL: The worst that would have happened would have been a cure, a
therapy of truth for the Turks. We have to explain to the Turks, who
are a great people, who are our friends, that they are not guilty of
the crimes of their great-grandfathers, that recognizing the crimes
would not weaken them but reinforce them. What would Germany be if
it were to deny the Holocaust?
GS: This is the great mystery. Why is it that the Germans have reckoned
with their past so differently than the Turks have – even as Turkey
is looking, in some ways, to draw closer to the European realm?
BHL: What Turkey lacks are the kinds of friends who are willing to
explain that the best way to enter into Europe, the best way to enter
into modernity, is to recognize the genocide.
GS: And who would such a friend be?
BHL: America. That’s why it was a mistake to withdraw the resolution.
Turkey’s American friends should have said, ‘Wait a minute. It’s
a win-win. You don’t lose anything; you win credibility, you win
nobility, you win honor.’
GS: One of the arguments that the Anti-Defamation League used in
its fight against the genocide resolution was that Turkey’s Jews
were pleading with them to keep the American government from passing
the bill.
BHL: It’s not true. They are a minuscule minority in a country sliding
toward Islamism. Every word they utter is chosen carefully.
They are like hostages. Have you ever seen a hostage speaking freely?
GS: Another of the Anti-Defamation League’s arguments was that this
is a 90-year-old tragedy and no lives will be saved through its
recognition. Israel, on the other hand, is very much at risk. On this
basis, Israel’s needs trump those of the Armenian fallen.
BHL: The Jewish code taught me that you have to take care of both the
living and the dead. And when it comes to the dead without graves,
the demands are even greater. We – not us Jews, but we human beings –
are the protectors of the graveless, and the Armenians are such dead.
This is not an either/or. The Talmudic wisdom teaches us to oppose
just this sort of false choice. I will make one other point: If we
don’t stand very firmly on this question, we will be disarmed and
weak in the face of a most urgent issue. Holocaust denial is today
not just a political stance, but a world religion. We cannot afford
to be anything but rigorous on the general topic of genocide. For
the sake of the Jewish people, for the sake of Israel and for the
sake of the fight against antisemitism, this is a crucial question.
Bernard-Henri Levy will deliver the annual Francine and Abdallah
Simon State of World Jewry Lecture at New York’s 92nd Street Y on
March 5 at 8 p.m.