THREE WRONGS MAKE A BIG MESS
By Ali Moossavi
Arab American News
Friday, 08.15.2008, 12:10pm
MI
Trivia time: This Middle Eastern country has long denied a genocide
happened in the past. It has worked, in public and behind the scenes,
to convince others this genocide didn’t happen and undo any efforts
to recognize the event as such.
Now, what country am I talking about? If your answer is Iran, that’s
understandable, given the media fallout last year over President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declaration that the Nazi Holocaust didn’t
happen and sponsored a revisionist conference, attracting the likes
of David Duke.
However, that answer is wrong and you lose 1.5 million points. The
correct answer is Israel.
Yes, the light unto nations whose existence is premised on
preventing another Holocaust and rallying around the battle cry
"Never Again!" officially denies that 1.5 million Armenians were
systematically murdered by the Ottoman empire in 1915.
And guess which Middle Eastern country does officially recognize the
genocide? Why, Iran of course, but don’t feel bad for not knowing –
it’s not something the media tried to report, especially during the
Holocaust denial conference that earned Ahmadinejad the title of New
Hitler. ()
Israel isn’t the only one guilty of such holocaust denial; the Bush
administration went out of its way to persuade Congress last year to
drop its planned resolution declaring the mass murder genocide so as
not to offend Turkey. As the largest army in NATO and a longtime ally
during the Cold War, Turkey has used its strategic clout to silence any
criticism, whether it’s the genocide, or their more recent treatment
of the Kurds, etc.
Much of that clout is due to the power of the Israel lobby, which
has gone out of its way to prevent any official recognition of
genocide on the grounds of preserving Israel’s strategic relations
with Ankara. Leading the charge was the Anti-Defamation League, whose
head, Abraham Foxman, fired the Boston branch leader for daring to
agree with the growing consensus within the Jewish community that,
indeed, a genocide did occur in 1915.
The ensuing outcry forced Foxman to backtrack a little and issue
an ambiguous statement that acknowledged that genocide took place,
but not really:
"We have never negated but have always described the painful events
of 1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians
as massacres and atrocities," he wrote.
Then Foxman proceeded to negate the genocide by writing:
"We continue to firmly believe that a congressional resolution on such
matters is a counterproductive diversion" that "may put at risk the
Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship
between Turkey, Israel and the United States."
Adding further insult to injury, Foxman told the Jerusalem Post
that last year’s fallout was "behind us." In his recent meetings with
Turkish leaders, he said, "that they need to deal with live Armenians,"
and strengthen relations, so that "it will place the historical issue
in the background and be much easier to deal with."
In other words, "never again" takes a backseat to "business as
usual." Again. And by "business as usual," I mean defending Israel
by any means necessary.
Ironically, the ADL engages in defamation through their tired
and unfounded accusation of anti-Semitism, particularly the "new"
anti-Semitism as described in numerous op-eds and a book by Foxman
called "Never Again?" It’s long been used as part of their ideological
counteroffensive against awareness and outrage over Israeli abuses
and expansionism over the years, especially during the Intifada.
Another tactic that has emerged in recent years is to raise the
banner of justice for Jewish refugees who fled from Arab countries
between 1948 and 1953. One of the biggest proponents of this campaign
is former Canadian minister of justice and current MP Irwin Cotler,
who spoke at a meeting in New York last November before the peace
conference in Annapolis, MD.
"This was not just a forced exodus, it was a forgotten exodus,"
he told the New York Times, using the Biblical reference for the
desired effect. Cotler and his ilk, on their own exodus to find the
promised land of historical – and moral – parity between the suffering
of Palestinians and Arab Jews, both blamed on the Arab rejection of
the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947.
During an appearance in an "overflow gathering" of the British House
of Lords on June 25th, Cotler, who unveiled a nine-point plan for
"refugee rights," said:
"Had the U.N. Partition Resolution been accepted sixty years ago,
there would have been no Arab-Israeli war — no refugees, Jewish
or Arab – and none of the pain and suffering of these last sixty
years." One point called for Arab states and the Arab League to
"acknowledge their role and responsibility in their double aggression
of launching an aggressive war against Israel and the perpetration
of human rights violations against their respective Jewish nationals."
In an op-ed called "The Double Nakba" that appeared in the Jerusalem
Post five days later, Cotler reiterated that point and labeled
"revisionist Mideast narrative" anything that held "that Israel was
responsible for the Palestinian Nakba of 1948." With groups bearing
benign monikers like Justice for Jews From Arab Countries, it’s a
movement that tries to look benign on the surface.
In reality, it’s Nakba denial without the overt rejection of the
actual events of 1948. It’s a slick repackaging of the Zionist
narrative, which at one time denied that Palestinians even existed
as a people. Now, the party line is, we admit they exist and were
ethnically cleansed, but it’s your fault that we killed your relatives
and expelled you from your homes, now our homes.
Never mind the fact that the expulsion of Arab Jews was a policy of
reaction against the expulsion of Palestinians, which occurred first;
or the fact that the Nakba was the culmination of Zionist planning
since Theodore Herzl.
"We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by
procuring employment for it in the transit countries while denying it
any employment in our own country," Herzl wrote in his diary. It’s a
policy documented by Israeli and non-Israeli scholars and eyewitnesses;
the historical record stands undisputed.
So what do these two people and their issues have in common? Jewish
interests narrowly defined by the national interests of the
Jewish state. From this weltanschauung of apartheid, settlerism and
territorial expansion sprang a culture of denial where philosophical
gymnastics and moral degradation are a way of life. It’s a culture
where the Holocaust is held up not as a lesson with universal import,
but a unique event that justifies Zionist chauvinism and Israeli
aggression.
Which isn’t to say that Ahmadinejad should escape criticism,
either. Holding a conference questioning the Holocaust not only did
nothing for the Palestinian cause – not to mention embarrass Iranians
like myself – he gave neofascism a helping hand.
Questioning the foundations of the Jewish state is fine, but the
moral high ground would be better served by unraveling Nakba denial
as the basis on which Israel exists. The Holocaust may have served as
a pretext, but the real cause of the Palestinian exodus – Zionism –
was around decades before.
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