Ha’aretz, Israel
Jan 6 2012
When silence is wisdom
By having its education committee hold a hearing on the subject of the
Armenian tragedy, the Knesset is setting a dangerous course, morally,
politically and historically.
By Michael Berenbaum
Last week’s Knesset discussion on whether the Armenian tragedy merits
being called a “genocide” was a sad and dangerous spectacle, one that
put Israel in a no-win, all-lose situation.
On the one hand there are those who believe in historical justice. But
that is not the real issue, as the MKs who organized the session are
joined by others who are furious at contemporary Turkey for many
recent incidents that have contributed to a significant deterioration
in relations.
On the other side are pragmatists who feel that Israel’s relationship
with the Turks is tense enough right now without adding fuel to the
fire, especially as the Syrian situation is so explosive. Turkey has
come out strongly against the Assad regime, even as Israeli observers
wonder whether their interests are better served by the devil it knows
than by the unknown alternative. They are joined by MKs who are
zealous to preserve the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust, and who feel
that use of the term “genocide” with regard to the Armenian tragedy
somehow diminishes the Shoah’s stature – even if it’s by no means
clear how this is so.
By having its education committee hold a hearing on the subject, the
Knesset is setting a dangerous course, morally, politically and
historically. Here’s why:
I have no doubt that the crime committed during the years 1915-1918,
which led to the deaths of as many 1.5 million Armenians, was
genocide. Indeed, the very word, a hybrid combining the Greek geno,
meaning race or tribe, and the Latin derivative cide, from caedesi,
meaning killing, was first coined to depict the massacre of Armenians
by the Turks.
Early this past decade, I worked on a film depicting Turkey’s mostly
positive role during the Holocaust, which brought me into direct
contact with many Turkish officials. Naturally, the issue of the
Armenian genocide came up. I advised those officials and Turkish
intellectuals with whom I have worked closely to admit to the genocide
and not to expend such national prestige fighting a historical truth.
It implicates neither the current regime nor any of its predecessors
dating back to the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War
I. Say it once, say it quietly and get it behind you.
No one would think any less of the current Turkish government were it
to acknowledge such a chapter in the country’s history. In fact, such
an act would be met with admiration. Germany is a proof in point: By
admitting to the past and taking vital steps to establish a democratic
state and to act and educate against the hatred of the Jews, Germany
has overcome its Nazi past.
But the Knesset should stay out of it. For the Knesset to pass a
resolution today would only serve to politicize history. Sensitive to
its relationship to Turkey and to the vast stake the Turkish
government has had in denying the genocide, the State of Israel has
long believed that it’s not in its national interest to use the word
genocide with regard to the massacres. There is no mention of this
genocide at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial
institution. Foreign Ministry officials forced the cancellation of an
academic conference on the subject in Israel some three decades ago.
The state has also formally and informally pressured international
Jewish organizations, as well as the influential American Jewish
community, not to touch the issue.
In the early 1990s, for example, when the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum was in the process of being created, Israel tried to make sure
it would include no mention of the Armenian genocide, and came close
to succeeding. The museum eliminated from the permanent exhibition’s
opening film any mention of previous cases of genocide, and limited
mention of the Armenian case to Hitler’s 1939 quote on the subject, as
well as to a reference to Franz Werfel’s novel “The Forty Days of Musa
Dagh.”
At the time, I was the museum’s project director, and Israeli Embassy
staff and Foreign Ministry officials warned me that we should steer
clear of the issue. During a visit to Israel, the then-vice chairman
of the Holocaust Memorial Council met with the foreign minister
himself, who told him this was a subject of highest concern to the
Israeli government. As a result, he ordered the staff not to discuss
it and when it was brought up before the museum’s content committee,
the atmosphere was explosive. I was ordered not to mention the
Armenians again.
And there are many other, more recent examples of Israeli governmental
pressures.
So why should Israel not deal with this? After all, not to pass such a
resolution would be craven. It would legitimize the denial of history
for political purposes, for a political agenda. Yet to pass this
resolution at this time, when nothing has changed other than the fact
that Israel and Turkey are feuding, would have Israel serve as an
example par excellence that historical facts can be changed for
political purpose – something other nations might notice as they
consider the memory of the Holocaust.
Israel is now in a lose/lose situation. The longer the politicians
debate the issue, the more it diminishes the country’s moral stature
and the more dangerous it becomes for the memory of the Holocaust. Not
to acknowledge the Armenian genocide puts it on the side of historical
deniers, yet to acknowledge it now, out of anger, as punishment for
the Turks, is the ultimate of politicization of history. Sometimes, as
the Talmud tells us, silence is wisdom.
Michael Berenbaum is the director of the Sigi Ziering Institute on the
Holocaust at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and
professor of Jewish studies there.