ISRAEL LAWMAKERS TO DEBATE RECOGNIZING ARMENIA GENOCIDE
NowLebanon
Dec 26 2011
In Israeli parliamentary committee is to hold a debate on Monday
on recognizing genocide in Armenia, a move likely to further strain
already tense relations with Turkey.
The education committee is to convene at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) to discuss
a proposal to mark April 24, the day when Turkish mass killings of
Armenians started in 1915, as a memorial day for “the massacre of
the Armenian people.”
A similar proposal was rejected by parliament in 2007, when ties
between Israel and Turkey were warm.
But relations plunged into deep crisis last year when Israeli forces
killed nine Turks in a raid on a Turkish ferry, part of an activist
flotilla seeking to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.
“We’ve been working on this for many years,” Georgette Avakian of
the Armenian National Committee in Jerusalem told Israeli public radio.
“Hope the time has come.”
In October, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and axed military
ties and defense trade. Last week, Israel cancelled completion of a
2008 contract to sell Turkey aerial surveillance equipment.
A parliamentary supporter of an Israeli memorial day for Armenian
genocide – Zahava Gal-On of the left-wing Meretz party – said the
changed diplomatic climate might mean that the measure gains support
this time.
“For many years, Israel’s government has refused to recognize the
genocide for cynical, strategic and economic reasons, connected to
its ties with Turkey,” she told the Haaretz daily.
“Now, given the state of relations between the countries, I can’t rule
out the possibility that the Foreign Ministry is exploiting affairs.”
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
But the Turkish government strongly denies this, saying 300,000
Armenians and as many Turks were killed in civil conflict when the
Christian Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottoman
Empire.
France’s lower house voted last week to criminalize the denial
of genocide in Armenia, prompting Turkey to suspend political and
military cooperation.