ISRAELI MINISTER GILAD ERDAN CALLS TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Updated News

June 13 2012
Canada

An Israeli cabinet minister said on Tuesday that the Jewish state
ought to change its policy and recognize the 1915 mass killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks as an act of genocide.

Gilad Erdan, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
answered a motion in parliament by opposition lawmakers marking the
massacre’s anniversary.

“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.

Israel has long avoided acknowledging the mass killings of Armenians
as genocide, in deference to already strained ties with Turkey which
rejects that view.

Relations with Turkey have been tense since the 2010 killings of nine
Turkish activists in a commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship. Turkey
withdrew its ambassador to Israel after that incident and suspended
military cooperation.

Erdan said the Israeli government had not formally changed its
policy on the Armenian’s past tragedy, adding: “we should definitely
support holding an open and in depth discussion that analyses the
data and facts.”

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5
million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey
during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by
the Ottoman government.

Successive Turkish governments and most Turks feel the charge of
genocide is an insult. Ankara argues that there was heavy loss of
life on both sides during fighting in the area.

Israeli lawmakers voted that the issue would face further debate
in the education committee. Any parliamentary decision on the issue
would not be binding on the government.

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said Israel’s
formal position on the Armenian tragedy remained that the issue “must
be decided by historians and not be subject to political deliberation.”

The Armenian issue has stirred emotions in Israel where many feel
that the Jewish people who suffered six million dead in the Nazi
Holocaust during World War Two have a moral obligation to identify
more closely with the Armenians’ ordeals.

“Those who demand recognition of the murder are not engaged in lobbying
but are simply seeking historic justice,” Israeli Parliament speaker
Reuven Rivlin, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, said.

Nino Abesadze, a lawmaker with the centrist Kadima party, counseled
against linking the issue to relations with Turkey.

“We must not link our sentiments about the Armenian tragedy to
considerations about other dangers in the region. Events such as
genocide are above politics,” Abesadze said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress