‘GENOCIDE’ TALK TESTS ISRAEL-TURKEY TIES
By Ilene R. Prusher
Christian Science Monitor, MA
Oct 28 2007
Jewish support for Congress to call an Armenian massacre ‘genocide’
has strained relations between the longtime allies.
JERUSALEM – It’s not that often that one finds an archbishop in long
black vestments making his way down the hill from Jerusalem’s Old
City for a political protest at Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
But for Archbishop Aris Shirvanian, these are not ordinary times, and
matters of conscience are at hand. They begin with the stories that
his father told him about the atrocities he witnessed as a 9-year-old,
which ended in the death of his father’s parents and uncles. The
year was 1915, and Mr. Shirvanian’s father escaped, like many others,
to the Holy Land, which has a prominent Armenian community.
They ended in Washington, where a congressional resolution recognizing
the mass killing of Armenians in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire
as a genocide was tabled late last week amid intense domestic and
international pressure.
Much of that pressure came not just from Turkey but from Israel.
While some American Jewish groups had taken up the cause of the
Armenian genocide, the Jewish State was busy lobbying on behalf of
their Turkish allies, rare friends in the Muslim world who maintain
both military and economic ties with Israel. Turkey, the first
Muslim country to recognize Israel, has long rejected the idea that
the killings of Armenians should be called a genocide. They say that
many Turks, as well as Armenians, were killed at the time.
The Israeli stance – following an Oct. 10 House committee vote in
favor of passing a genocide resolution – prompted the first protest
of its kind by this country’s usually apolitical Armenian Orthodox
community, which numbers about 5,000, not including approximately
20,000 Jewish Armenians who have immigrated here over the years.
With Israel’s strategic relationship with Turkey in mind, the Armenian
question has become an untouchable topic. The protest went virtually
uncovered by most of the local media and got noticed by foreign
papers only.
To Shirvanian, who was born in pre-state Haifa and spent 30 years in
the US before returning to Jerusalem, this is no reason to give up now.
"This was the first genocide in the 20th century, and the Jewish one
followed. Passing this is as important as recognition of the Jewish
Holocaust by the whole world," he says.
"If there’s no recognition of such heinous acts, then the crime may
be repeated," Shirvanian says. "We want this because Turkish leaders
have never expressed any remorse for what happened to the Armenian
people. Secondly, most Armenians hope there will be some kind of
reparation, like there was to the Jewish people."
Turkey made its viewpoint clear during the visit here earlier this
month of its foreign minister, Ali Babacan, who told several Israeli
media outlets that Turks believe the resolution amounts to a Jewish
and Armenian cabal to besmirch Turkey, and that he hoped Israel
would intervene.
"All of a sudden the perception in Turkey right now is that the Jewish
people … and the Armenian lobbies are now hand in hand trying to
defame Turkey, and trying to condemn Turkey and the Turkish people,"
Mr. Babacan told The Jerusalem Post.
Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, Namik Tan, explained in an interview
last week that it’s natural for Turkey to ask Israel for help in
Washington.
Mr. Tan says that one major reason the genocide resolution got
as far as it did was the decision of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) – a major Jewish-American organization dedicated to fighting
anti-Semitism and bigotry worldwide – to come out in support of the
Armenian genocide resolution.
"We cannot deny the fact the Israel is the heart of the Jewish
communities worldwide, and there is a very strong and effective
interaction between Israel and the Jewish community. We have a right to
ask our Israeli friends to talk to their friends in the US," he says.
"There is another fact, that eight of the sitting members of the
foreign relations committee are of Jewish descent and they are ardent
supporters of this resolution, and all voted in favor of it, which
encouraged and bolstered the ambitions of the Armenians and the ADL
statement," Tan adds. The ADL, he says, "has confused the hearts and
minds of so many Jewish institutions."
He warned that the resolution’s passage would do additional damage
to Israel’s image in Turkey.
"When something like this resolution passes, it really offends
the Turkish people, and it becomes impossible to explain to the
rank-and-file people that it is not related to Israel," he says.
An Israeli government official, who asked not to be named, says
that Turkey’s conception of Israel’s influence over Jews abroad
is distorted.
"The whole idea that Israel can control the American Jewish community
is obviously a bit of a misunderstanding of reality," the official
says.
Tan says there is no proof to support the genocide claims and
reiterated what he says is a longstanding offer to bring Turkish and
Armenian historians together to study the issue.
That, says George Hintlian, historian of the Armenian community of
Jerusalem, is not an option.
"For us," he says, "it’s like sitting with David Irving," a self-styled
British historian famous for questioning facts surrounding the
Holocaust. "Do you sit with deniers? Modest deniers?"
Mr. Hintlian says his father was 17 years old during a famous death
march in which his grandfather died. He believes it’s only a matter
of time, perhaps 10 or 15 years, before the US and others recognize
the events of 1915 as a genocide.
In the meantime, he brings along a copy of the grim "map of the
Armenian genocide," copies of which paper the alleyways of the Armenian
quarter of the Old City, for anyone interested in the issue.
The posters often get ripped down or defaced; activists in the
community soon replace them.
"I think the totality of the Israeli public and the press sympathizes
with us, but this double-standard is so embarrassing for Israeli
intellectuals that it’s hard for anyone here to speak about it," he
says. "We have a psychological burden for the next generation. The
American-Jewish community is saying that this stain should be
taken away from the people of the Holocaust, but Israel is acting
pragmatically."
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev says, "The process in
the House of Representatives is an internal American affair and we’re
not involved in that. Our position on the Armenian tragedy is well
known and has not changed." The Foreign Ministry issued a statement
a few months ago noting the "tragedy" that occurred in 1915, which
included "mass killings."
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