One hundred six years ago, 1915, the Ottoman Turkish Muslim regime in Turkey massacred and expelled many millions of the Christian Armenian population within the Turkish Empire. More than one million Armenian children were separated from their parents and were murdered.
Even Jews who lived in Ottoman Turkish Palestine were expelled or were murdered. Among them were thousands of Jews living in Jaffa and hundreds who lived in Jerusalem. The lucky Jews who survived fled to Alexandria in Egypt and remained there until the 1918 arrival of a British Mandate in Palestine and the end of the Ottoman Turkish regime forever.
Much, perhaps most, of the world remained silent during and after the bloody Turkish holocaust years.
It was Adolf Hitler who in 1939 made the remark “the world has forgotten the Turkish genocide. They will not remember our treatment of the Jews”.
But Hitler was both right and wrong. The Turkish genocide of Christian Armenians has been sadly forgotten while the massacres of six million Jews is widely remembered.
While many nations today recall the Ottoman Turkish genocide, seventy-three years have passed and Israel has not publicly acknowledged the inhuman tragedy of innocent Christians, the decent Armenian people. We are living seventy-three years of immense shame.
A nation and a people who suffered the greatest holocaust in world history, who endured the genocide of millions of Jews in every land where German Nazi boots trampeled, who witnessed death by poison gas and by flaming fires, by ghettos and mass killings such as Babi Yar, have closed eyes and mouths to our great shame and disgrace in not protesting Turkey’s annihilation of the Armenians.
Today’s Germany is not the Germany of its cruel past. Neither is today’s Turkey responsible for the genocide of its previous Ottoman government.
But today’s Germany admitted its previous guilt and made restitution while today’s Turkey denies guilt and refuses restitution to surviving members of murdered families. Land, home and property of Armenians were confiscated by Turks together with Armenian lives whose blood covered the lands of the Turkish Empire.
It is of interest to know that Armenia was the first nation to accept Christianity as its state religion. The Armenians are the world’s first Christians. Thousands of them succeeded in fleeing the massacres and made their way to the Holy Land in Palestine, settling mainly in Jerusalem where they work, live and pray in their communities today.
Israel has claimed that a reason for their withholding of recognition of the Turkish genocide between 1914-1918 was due to its favorable relations with modern Turkey, the first Muslim nation to recognize the Jewish State of Israel in 1948. Ultimately, Turkey became a favorite country for Israeli Jews to visit.
Gold jewelry and fine clothing were better buys in Istanbul than in Tel-Aviv. And gold was to be treasured more than remembrance of the deaths of millions at the hands of the many jewelry merchants and their past families in all the cities of modern Turkey.
We, as a Jewish nation and people, must recognize the tragedy suffered by the Armenian people. We owe it to their surviving families and to all our fellow Armenian citizens living in Israel among us.
Two years ago while spending a day in Jerusalem, I made my way to the Armenian Patriarchate and asked permission to enter. I was welcomed and was led to the office of the religious authorities of the Armenian monastery.
I spoke of my shame as an Israeli Jew in the failure of our country to officially recognize the genocide of the Armenian people which preceded the genocide of the Jews. I was offered a cup of coffee (hoping that it was not what is commonly called Turkish coffee which would have been inappropriate) and I listened carefully to the soulful remarks of the priest who was speaking with me.
At the end of my visit, I opened my wallet and handed a large bill of Israeli shekels to the priest and asked him to accept it as a donation to the Armenian poor from a Jew who suffers from their suffering.
It frankly surprised me to hear him telling me that my donation was the first he had ever received from a Jew living in Israel. Happy to be the first and hopefully never the last.
We owe much to the survivors of the Turkish tragedy. We owe them a recognition of the massacre of their families. We owe them our respect and our sympathies. As they recognize the tragedy of Jewish suffering so too are we obligated to recognize theirs.
Israeli Jews and Armenian Christians living as brothers in Israel, a land holy to us both, share a common devastation. Let us never forget our suffering nor theirs.
Speak up and let your voices be heard. It is time, after seventy-three years, to erase the shame of our silence.
Demand that our government join with other decent nations and peoples by officially recognizing the Armenian massacres by the genocide committed by the Turkish Ottoman regime 106 years ago.
We dare not remain silent any longer. We must not. We must cleanse ourselves of our national shame.
As our Jewish religion teaches us “v’im lo achshav, aimatai”. And if not now, when?
April 7, 2021
Topics about Armenian-Americans are included n the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum
The Armenian National Committee of America–Western Region on Wednesday welcomed the inclusion of Armenian-Americans in the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.
The ANCA-WR Education Committee as well as the Ethnic Studies Curriculum Task Force were actively engaged in the process for the past two years to ensure the voices of over 1 million strong Armenian-Californians are heard and the Armenian experience is part of the ESMC. The Armenian-American community was actively engaged with the California Department of Education, submitting tens of thousands of public comments over this process and demonstrating the importance of this issue.
“We thank our Education Committee, Task Force, and tens of thousands of community members as well as coalition partners for their diligent work in ensuring that California’s new ESMC lives up to the values of the Golden State,” remarked the ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian, Esq. “We look forward to actively engaging with all the relevant stakeholders to build on this progress and ensure a meaningful representation of the Armenian experience in California schools.”
ANCA-WR once again reaffirms its strong support for a curriculum that “presents an opportunity for teachers to develop culturally/community relevant and responsive pedagogies that are both revitalizing and sustaining.” The organization welcomes the drafters’ efforts to include, and urge further development on diasporan experiences, inclusive of peoples historically marginalized from California curricula, and United States scholarship writ large, such as Armenian-Americans.
While its use is not mandated, the ESMC is intended to supply local school districts with the background, ideas, and examples to begin local discussions on expanding ethnic studies offerings.
For years, the State of California mandates the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in the list of studied subject areas for the adopted courses of study in social science for grades 7-12.
The Armenian National Committee of America–Western Region is the largest and most influential nonpartisan Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues in pursuit of the Armenian Cause.
12:44, 8 April, 2021
YEREVAN, APRIL 8, ARMENPRESS. Prosecutor General of Russia Igor Krasnov has arrived in Armenia at the invitation of Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan, head of the PR department at the Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia Arevik Khachatryan said on Facebook.
“Prosecutor General of Armenia Artur Davtyan welcomed the Russian Prosecutor General at the Zvartnots airport”, she said.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
April 5, 2021
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko
Official Moscow is convinced that the OSCE Minsk Group should play a leading role in advancing a settlement for the Karabakh conflict, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said in an interview on Sunday.
Late last week, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a speech delivered at the virtual summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States that the OSCE Minks Group co-chairs played “zero” role in resolving the conflict, claiming that his policy of aggression ensured a “victory” for Azerbaijan.
“We are convinced that the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs should play a leading role in the future in overcoming the consequences of the crisis and in finding ways for a lasting and long-term political and diplomatic solution to the conflict,” Rudenko told the Moscow-Baku news agency in an interview.
He also claimed that main principles outlined in the November 9 agreement that ended military actions in Karabakh were based on what was developed by the Minsk Group co-chairs.
“The main settlement principles developed by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair are the basis of the statement by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia on November 9, 2020, on the ceasefire and the cessation of all hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone,” explained Rudenko, adding the Russia, as one of the Minsk Group co-chairing, worked closely with the other two—United States and France—to stop the bloodshed.
“Russia sees the role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, taking into consideration that it was Russia’s mediation role that actually led to concrete results in the settlement of this conflict,” said Rudenko.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister also remarked about Armenia’s upcoming snap parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place in June, calling on all political forces to exercise restrain ahead of the polls.
In a separate interview on Friday with the Armenian Novoye Vremya newspaper, Rudenko said that Moscow cannot be indifference to the goings on in Armenia, despite the fact the elections are Armenia’s domestic business
“We call on all political forces in the republic to show restraint and look for reasonable compromises to consolidate Armenian society. We express hope that during the pre-election period everything will go peacefully and within the framework of the constitution and serve as a starting point for achieving long-term stability in Armenia,” he told Novoye Vremyan when asked whether Moscow supports any of the Armenian election contenders.
Rudenko insisted that Russian-Armenian relations have been “developing dynamically at various levels and regardless of any external or internal developments,” despite certain circles with close ties to the Kremlin recently claiming a schism between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, reported Azatutyun.am.
As an example Rudenko cited the more than 60 phone calls held between Putin and Pashinyan as a measurement of the “dynamic” relations. Reportedly, most of the 60-plus calls took place during last fall’s Karabakh war.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun) party’s Supreme Council of Armenia member Ishkhan Saghatelyan, who coordinates the activities of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement, said police used force to detain his three relatives after the opposition rally in downtown Yerevan on Sunday.
“The Turks [referring to police officers] attacked my aunt, brother and nephew in central Yerevan and detained them,” he wrote on .
The opposition leader warned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan against attempts to pressure the opposition, adding they will continue to take every effort to remove him from office.
16:27, 29 March, 2021
YEREVAN, MARCH 29, ARMENPRESS. Russia remains Armenia’s strategic ally and Armenia truly appreciates it, Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian said on March 29.
“I do not agree that Armenia and Armenia’s foreign policy depend on Russia. Russia remains our strategic ally, and we truly appreciate it, because after all the war stopped thanks to Russia’s efforts. Some might not like this, but this is a fact. Otherwise we’d have a completely different situation,” Aivazian said to lawmakers at the parliament’s foreign relations committee.
Aivazian emphasized that the CSTO has an important place in Armenia’s security sector. He said that during the war Armenia had notified about the situation but not applied to the CSTO.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.
Angela Merkel’s ruling centre-right alliance between the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union has recently been plagued by pandemic infighting and scandal. But there is an arguably larger scandal engulfing playing out: The Azerbaijan Affair.
A VICE investigation can reveal the previously-unknown extent of the authoritarian regime’s influence on conservative German MPs. Oil-rich and with a tendency to lock up critics, Azerbaijan has been attempting to buy itself a better image in Europe for years.
It’s done this by sponsoring sporting events – and bribing politicians. And not always successfully. For example, in 2020 Luca Volontè, a conservative Italian member of the Council of Europe, was found to have been paid around two million euros in order to prevent a critical resolution against Azerbaijan and was sentenced to four years in prison by a Milan court. According to experts, Volontè is only the tip of the iceberg. In Germany, investigations are underway into a number of German MPs, including Karin Strenz and Axel Fischer, both members of the CDU.
Scratch the surface and you’ll find that Azerbaijani influence on Berlin involves a wide network of politicians and lobbyists. Endorsements by German politicians, mostly from the CDU/CSU, are celebrated in Azerbaijan’s state media. And that’s because the republic desperately needs good press abroad – for decades, Azerbaijan has been at loggerheads with its neighbour Armenia. Last year, Azerbaijan started a bloody war with Armenia over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. The number of casualties is thought to be in the thousands.
Human Rights Watch has described as “conspicuous” the fact that so many conservative German MPs clearly side with Azerbaijan in the dispute, and continue to support the regime despite the state of democracy and human rights in the country.
MP and Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Bareiß, a key figure in Chancellor Merkel’s economic policy, has visited Azerbaijan several times. Last year, at the height of the first wave of COVID-19, he lobbied to send a shipment of ventilators to Azerbaijan. With ventilators still in very short supply in Germany, the request was denied.
Olav Gutting, another CDU MP, has repeatedly attracted attention with kind words about Azerbaijan – speaking at the first German-Azerbaijani economic summit in 2018, and also praising the state’s “long democratic history”. Jailed critics of Ilham Aliyev’s regime probably hold a different view. According to VICE investigations Gutting employed an Azerbaijani intern in his parliamentary office whose Facebook posts include fawning over dictator Aliyev and referring to Armenians as “animals” or “dogs”. In the first 22 months of the current election cycle, Gutting declared a supplementary income of 450,000 euros (about £380,000) on top of his parliamentary wage. As a lawyer, he is legally able to keep his clients and the specifics of his income under wraps.
MPs like Gutting regularly land themselves in Azerbaijan’s state press for their sympathetic comments. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani media often broadcasts interviews from a German television station, TV Berlin. Not a big name in Germany, but well-known and well-connected in the capital, TV Berlin narrowly escaped insolvency in 2013. The station’s showpiece is Peter Brinkmann, a greying journalist who some say brought down the Berlin Wall.
A good 30 years on, Brinkmann seems to have lost faith in critical journalism, especially when it comes to the authoritarian Aliyev regime and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It’s a topic the station reports on surprisingly often – and surprisingly partisanly. In 2015, German media journalist Stefan Niggemeier called TV Berlin an “Azerbaijani government channel”.
That same year, Brinkmann interviewed CDU MP Strenz, who died earlier this month. The interview was a study in how not to conduct political interviews: No critical inquiry, only approval. After the interview, Strenz praised Brinkmann as a “real journalism legend”.
Strenz was at the centre of the Azerbaijan Affair until she collapsed and died on a flight from Cuba on March 21. The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office was investigating Strenz on suspicion of bribery, bribery of elected officials and money laundering. She had received at least 15,000 euros (about £12,700) from Azerbaijan in 2014 and 2015. If convicted, she would have faced up to five years in prison.
In addition to Strenz, TV Berlin has also aired several interviews with Germany’s Azerbaijani ambassador, plus cheerful reports on President Aliyev’s visit to Germany, and pleasant documentaries on the country and its culture. One YouTube commenter sums up the elements conspicuously absent from the documentaries: “What about the unjust state of Azerbaijan? What about the free press, the opposition, just being shot in front of the house?”
Relatively small enough in Germany to fly under the radar for its propaganda, TV Berlin is the ideal station for the Azerbaijani lobby. Whereas in Baku, the name “TV Berlin” carries weight and is easily marketed through state press. TV Berlin’s head of programming wouldn’t talk to VICE, while TV Berlin management offered us a telephone interview shortly before deadline. Brinkmann also refused to respond to our questions surrounding his particular interest in Azerbaijan and the regime.
An insider familiar with TV Berlin’s production processes told VICE that many programs were commissioned and indirectly paid for by the Azerbaijani government. Other sources close to TV Berlin confirmed this. We asked TV Berlin for a written statement on the allegations, and did not receive it by deadline.
The commissions and finance came via lobbying organisation “The European Azerbaijan Society” (TEAS), since dissolved. Documents seen by VICE confirm the business relationship. Headquartered in Baku, TEAS lobbied in London, Paris, Istanbul, Berlin and Brussels between 2008 and 2018. The organisation was originally set up by Nijat and Tale Heydarov, the ambitious sons of Kamaladdin Heydarov, Azerbaijan’s influential minister of disaster management. Its stated goals were to highlight the country’s economic potential and to “raise awareness of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”.
Insiders describe the lobby as trying to strike a balance between achieving the greatest possible influence, with minimal visibility. And to be fair, the work of TEAS has attracted basically no media attention, with the exception of a few reports on its German head Shahin Namati.
Lobby experts describe Namati as a party animal – a dazzling businessman from Essen with Iranian-Azerbaijani roots and impressive access to German parliament. Equipped with a rare house pass that allowed him to visit MPs’ offices at any time, he regularly strolled the corridors of German parliament. Not infrequently, he worked on pro-regime statements with conservative MPs, which were then shared on news sites in Azerbaijan.
Namati organised trips to Baku for select politicians, threw parties at the posh Hotel de Rome and dinners at celebrity venues. At jazz concerts organised by TEAS, he drew attention to the suffering of Azerbaijani refugees – one of the regime’s central strategies for gaining sympathy. According to VICE sources, Namati and anchorman Brinkmann are also said to be close friends. Namati did not respond to our questions regarding TEAS, TV Berlin and the flow of money from Azerbaijan to Berlin.
Gutting also refused to speak to VICE. Two days before the news of her death, VICE emailed Strenz with questions regarding her previous trips to Azerbaijan and her connections to TV Berlin and to TEAS, and received no response.
We also asked Bareiß, parliamentary state secretary to the Ministry of Economics, about his visits to Azerbaijan and contact with Namati. Bareiß responded that he has been to the country five times, and the trips were officially reported to the parliament or were part of his remit as parliamentary state secretary. He has been to Armenia only once. He said he has never had any contact with TEAS or Namati, and has never received money or other benefits from TEAS, either directly or indirectly.
Unlike conservatives, Green politicians are considered out of reach for Azerbaijani lobbyists. We spoke to Tabea Rößner, a Green MP who is openly a member of the German-South Caucasian Parliamentary Group. Rößner traveled to Baku in 2015 with a delegation from the parliamentary group, including Strenz. Before a meeting with Aliyev, Rößner recalled Strenz insisting on moderating the conversation. Later, Rößner witnessed Aliyev stop by the hotel again and greet Strenz in the lobby with kisses.
It is important to make the distinction that not every German MP dedicated to Azerbaijan relations is disreputable. There are those who care about the country and not just personal profit. But if they care about Azerbaijan, they should also stand up for human rights. Like for Mahammad Mirzali, for example.
In mid-March, the well-known Azerbaijani blogger in exile was stabbed by multiple attackers in Nantes, France. He has a quarter of a million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Mirzali regularly reports on the persecution of opposition figures and on corruption in his native Azerbaijan.
The attackers reportedly tried to cut off his tongue.
YEREVAN, April 2. /TASS/. Armenian Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan has awarded defense ministry medals to specialists of the Russia radiation, chemical and biological protection forces for their assistance in combating the novel coronavirus pandemic, the press service of the Armenian defense ministry said on Friday.
“By an Armenian defense minister’s order, a number of specialists of the 48th Research Center of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces were awarded with the Armenian defense ministry medals for high professionalism they demonstrated during anti-epidemic campaign to curb the spread of the coronavirus infection in the Armenian army, diligent service and merits in the area of military medical cooperation,” it said.
By today, Armenia’s tally of coronavirus cases stands at 194,852, with 1,116 such cases reported during the past day. The coronavirus-related overall death toll is 3,552. As many as 864,876 tests for the coronavirus infection have been conducted in the country, covering some 28% of the population.