ARMENIA, TURKEY AND IRAQ
by Ed Koch
Jerusalem Post
Oct 16 2007
When I was a child, I read "The Forty Days at Musa Dagh" by Franz
Werfel, a fictionalized account of actual events, which told the story
of how the Turks persecuted and killed Armenians in 1915. From that
time on, I was on the side of the Armenians and against the Turks.
This was back in the days before the word "genocide" had entered our
vocabulary. To this day, I still believe the Turks killed 1.5 million
Armenians because of tribalism and their hatred of Christians. In
1915, during World War I, the Ottoman Empire was on the side of the
German Empire, then led by Kaiser Wilhelm II. At its high point,
the Ottoman Empire stretched from Greece to Egypt and everything in
between, including Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and
the coastal strip of North Africa.
When I was in Congress from 1969 through 1977, I joined with Ben
Rosenthal (D-NY), who is now deceased, John Brademas (D-IN) and Paul
Sarbanes (D-MD) as one of those supporting the Rosenthal amendment
which called on Congress to cut off military aid to Turkey unless it
removed its invading army from Cyprus. A coup in Cyprus had endangered
the Turkish minority on that island and precipitated the Turkish
invasion and the establishment of a Turkish controlled area in the
north of the island.
Let me digress for a moment and relate a short anecdote, which appears
in my book, "Politics." "When the Rosenthal amendment was ratified
by the House, Rosenthal, Brademas, Sarbanes and me were invited by
the Greek Patriarch of North and South America, Archbishop Iakovos,
now deceased, to his birthday party held in Manhattan and attended by
more than a thousand guests at which Paul Sarbanes and John Brademas
were to be honored. Well, the star was Rosenthal. When he came in,
the place erupted. You had a thousand Greeks in there.
It would be like a thousand Jews on something involving Israel of
momentous importance to them. The Rosenthal Amendment had carried at
that point, and I’ve never seen such a response for the size of the
group. It was wonderful. And Rosenthal made one of the best speeches
I’ve ever heard. It was a very short one.
He said, ‘I was wondering what I would say here tonight, and I thought
I’d tell you a story. You’re probably not going to appreciate it
in the way that it’s meant, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I had
lunch with my mother, who lives in New York, today; and she asked me
what I was doing tonight, so I said, ‘I’m going to a dinner, Mama,
that will honor two of my friends in Congress, John Brademas and Paul
Sarbanes. And, you know, Mama, they’re probably the two smartest men in
Congress.’ My mother said, ‘Are they Jewish?’ and I said, ‘No, Mama,
they’re not Jewish – they’re Greek.’ My mother said, ‘Are you sure
they’re not Jewish?’ I thought a moment and then I said to my mother,
‘Mama, I think they’re half Jewish’. And then he said to this crowd,
holding out his hands, ‘Tonight I’m half Greek.’ And the place erupted
in cheers and applause. I think it’s the best story I’ve ever heard
for an audience of that kind. It was wonderful, just wonderful."
Now back to the present. Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee
led by Chairman Tom Lantos, voted 27-21 to denounce the slaughter
of the Armenians in 1915 as an act of genocide by the Turks. The
Turks have always taken the position that the killing of Armenians
on their eastern border – their border with Russia, then on the side
of the allies in World War I – occurred because, they alleged, the
Armenians sided with the Russians, thereby committing treason against
the country in which they lived, the Ottoman Empire.
In support of their defense against committing an act of genocide,
they point to the fact that Armenians living in Constantinople,
then capital of the Ottoman Empire, were not killed.
The Turks in a newly created country – formed in 1917 — led by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk who secularized a then-theocratic Islamic remnant of
the Ottoman Empire, wanting to establish a new Turkey that included
all minorities to be equally treated in a democratic state, made it
illegal to disparage the new state.
The Turkish government, enraged at the action of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, has threatened retaliation if the Congress,
both House and Senate, passes a final resolution. The retaliation
threatened is to close the port in Turkey which permits the entry
of 30 percent of all US fuel used for military vehicles in Iraq and
the closure of the Turkish airport through which a large part of US
military supplies are airlifted for use in Iraq.
On my Bloomberg radio program on WBBR 1130 AM on the dial, I gave
my position on the issue and entered into a dialogue with a young
man who identified himself as Armenian. I said that while I still
believed what the Turks did in 1915 was an act of genocide, I would
not have voted for the resolution, because it endangers the security
of American troops and simply provides the Armenians with a political
victory and nothing else. Therefore, it is not worth the danger the
Congressional action will cause to American troops. While we did not
get into it in this discussion, I have on other occasions stated my
support for using American troops to defend the people of Darfur in
the Sudan from genocide which is occurring today. I also mentioned
on the program that during my tenure as a Congressman, I did not
sufficiently appreciate how valued an American ally the Turks had
become. I regretted my failure to appreciate their positive role as
our ally, particularly at a time when Greece was hostile to both the
US and Israel, while Turkey was friendly and supportive to both the
US and Israel.
My listener was surprised, he said, at my position on the resolution.
I replied that the paramount duty of all Americans is to safeguard
the well-being of American troops in Iraq. That comes before all
other considerations in my judgment. He responded that he did not
believe they would be endangered. I disagree and don’t think we should
chance it.
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