Category: News

Turkey needs to realize that Israel’s debate is only remotely related to ties with Ankara, but rather holds a special place in the broader debate about the Holocaust and Jewish victimhood.

By Louis Fishman

Once again the official day commemorating the 1915 Armenian Genocide, April 24, has passed without Israel issuing a statement of official recognition. As a country that inherited the legacy of the European genocide of Jews — the Holocaust — its recognition of the systematic killing of Ottoman Armenians would not only amount to a historically just move, but would also be an important step in promoting the study of comparative genocides, giving a special meaning to the important motto of “never again.” Further, it could lead to the understanding of how Turkish denial has only prevented the country from moving forward, showing Israel the need to end the denial of its own injustices.
Israel’s choosing not to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide is directly related to its attempts to maintain ties with Turkey, in good days and bad. At the height of Turkish-Israel relations in the 1990s, Israel maintained this policy in order not to risk jeopardizing its strong ties with the Turkish state, not to mention its arms deals. Shamefully, U.S. Jewish lobbies were coopted as a way to block American recognition of the Armenians’ tragedy as well.
Simply, Turkish tank deals trumped the moral and historical obligation of genocide recognition. Despite this, the internal debate surrounding the non-recognition emerged in 2000 when the liberal leftist education minister, the late Yossi Sarid (Meretz), attended Jerusalem’s 85th Armenian Genocide memorial ceremony. There he stated, “The Armenian Memorial Day should be a day of reflection and introspection for all of us, a day of soul-searching. On this day, we as Jews, victims of the Shoah [Holocaust] should examine our relationship to the pain of others.” In this speech he mentioned the word genocide no less than 10 times.
Despite years of strained relations that hit a pinnacle with the 2010 Gaza Flotilla affair, Israel still has not recognized the genocide. Ironically, the new reason was that Israeli policy makers believed this could lead to a full break in relations. However, before reaching this conclusion, U.S. Jewish lobbies had already opted out of taking their usual role in blocking Armenian Genocide recognition, and the Knesset debated the matter. While both groups denied this was related to the Flotilla, the message was clearly one of punishment for Turkey’s role. Even I argued against this, since recognition as a punishment against Turkey equaled no less of a farce than the previous situation.
In the summer of 2014 however, after Reuven Rivlin, a longtime advocate of Armenian Genocide recognition, became Israel’s president, it seemed that Israeli recognition would finally come at the 2015 centennial commemoration of that genocide. However, this too fell through due to pressure from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Despite this, Rivlin came quite close to offering official recognition, saying “the Armenian people were the first victims of modern mass killing,” and stressing that many Jewish people in Ottoman Palestine witnessed the horrors of the killings, a known fact. Rivlin’s words reiterated the fact that among the Israeli public, few doubt that it was a genocide – it is known in Hebrew as the Hashoah Ha’armenit, the Armenian Shoah (holocaust).
Perhaps now that Israel and Turkey have made numerous statements that they are close to renewing full diplomatic ties, Israel should make clear that its relations cannot be held hostage to Turkey’s intractable stance towards this topic, and that Armenian Genocide recognition is not about being a friend or enemy of Turkey. Further, Turkey needs to realize that in Israel the debate is only remotely related to Ankara, and rather holds a special place in the greater debate of the “uniqueness of the Holocaust” and the question of Jewish victimhood, which hits at the heart of Israeliness and the question on how to memorialize the Holocaust.
With April 24 falling during Passover this year, it also important to remember that denial is also inherent in the Israeli narrative. Passover, a holiday that celebrates the ancient Israelites’ liberation from slavery, embeds within its modern meaning the sense of freedom, and sets into motion the national days of Holocaust Memorial Day, moving on to Memorial Day for its fallen soldiers, and finally culminating in Independence Day. However, for Israel, freedom and independence amounted to the Nakba — the Catastrophe — for the Palestinians.
Even if different in scope, it can be argued that Israel has adopted Turkey’s stance of denial as a model toward the Palestinian Nakba — the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from the land — denying not only the existence of the event itself, which led to the forced expulsion or flight of 750,000 Palestinians, but also subsequently the erasing of the memory of a Palestinian past and the physical erasing of their presence in the geographical landscape of the country. In both countries, this has also included the use of legislation and courts to block the memory.
It is time that Israel take the moral high ground and recognize the Armenian Genocide. No less important is the need to do away with its denial of the Palestinian Nakba. Otherwise, like Turkey, it will remain raveled in conflict. In both cases, the long road to reconciliation starts with the recognition of the crimes that paved the way for the founding of these subsequent nation-states. Only by recognizing this will it allow Israel – and Turkey – the much needed opportunity to move forward.
Louis Fishman is an assistant professor at Brooklyn College who has lived in Turkey and writes about Turkish and Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

President Serzh Sargsyan had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry today at the initiative of the American side, President’s Press Office reports.

Issues related to the situation established as a result of gross violations of the ceasefire regime by Azerbaijan earlier this month were discussed.

President Sargsyan stressed that the irresponsible steps of Baku have caused a great harm to the negotiation process.

The US Secretary of States reiterated the full support of the US to the process of peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

The parties agreed there is no alternative to a peaceful solution and noted that it’s necessary to find mechanisms of mutually acceptable solution on the ground of basic principles.

The interlocutors emphasized the role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, taking into consideration that it is the only internationally recognized format for the settlement of the issue.

Reality star Kim Kardashian took to social media to commemorate the Armenian Genocide and call for its recognition. Kim’s Facebook message reads:

“I can’t believe it has been a year since my cousins, Khloe, Kanye, North and I visited Armenia and learned so much about our family history. Today marks the 101st year of the Armenian Genocide. Over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Empire. Today is an extremely important day of memorial for me and millions of fellow Armenians across the world. We need to stand together as one and help get the ‪Armenian Genocide‬ recognized.”

It’s been a year since my cousins, Khloe, Kanye, North &I visited Armenia &learned so much about our family history

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian)

Today marks the 101st year of the Armenian Genocide. Over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Empire.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian)

Today is an extremely important day of memorial for me and millions of fellow Armenians across the world.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian)

We need to stand together as one and help get the recognized. ??

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian)

Photo: Civilnet.am

A bus exploded on Halabyan Street in Yerevan at 21:51, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reports.

According to preliminary information, one erson was killed, another six were injured in the blast.

The explosion occurred on the 63rd line of the municipal bus route. The injured have been transported to Armenia Medical Center for treatment.

On 25 April Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received member of the European Parliament, head of EU-Artsakh friendship group Frank Engel, NKR President’s Press Office reports.

A range of issues related to the Europe-Artsakh relations and regional developments were discussed during the meeting.

Special attention was paid to the large-scale combat operations launched by Azerbaijan from 2 to 5 April and their consequences.

President Sahakyan expressed gratitude to Frank Engel for his high-principled work and sincere friendship, noting that those very ideas are at the basis of the Europe-Artsakh relations.

The Armenian Community of China, commonly known as ChinaHay, organized numerous gatherings across China on April 24 including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the reports.

“Hundreds of Armenian survivors from across the Ottoman Empire escaped eastward across the Caucasus and Russia, seeking refuge in China. They not only rebuilt their lives, but reconstituted community life and built a church (Harbin) and community centers in different cities. They established a relief association, youth groups, Armenian language and history classes, and a choir,” said Dr. Khatchig Mouradian, a genocide scholar whose research has also focused on the Armenian communities in China in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“It is particularly moving that 101 years after the genocide, Armenians in some of these very same cities held commemoration events on April 24,” he added.

Small yet vibrant Armenian communities existed primarily in Harbin, Shanghai, Manzhouli, Tientsin, and Hong Kong from the late 19th till the mid-20th century. Most Armenians left for the Americas or for Soviet Armenia by the 1950s. Today’s Armenian community in China is only a few decades old, and is primarily comprised of professionals and business people from the Middle East and North America, as well as university students from Armenia and other CIS countries, noted Mouradian.

Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm has asked Sweden’s TV4 television network to pull a documentary on the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, urging the channel to “reconsider” because the film “will fail to serve the principle of objectivity,” reports.

Ahead of Sunday evening’s scheduled broadcast of a documentary titled “Seyfo 1915 – The Assyrian Genocide,” TV4 said it received an email from Turkish embassy press officer Arif Gulen, in which he opposes the film’s use of the term “genocide,” used to describe the tragic death of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks during WWI.

The letter, which was subsequently  on TV4’s official website, asks the station to “reconsider your decision on broadcasting of the… documentary film with a balanced and sensible attitude,” while cautioning that “only a competent international tribunal can determine whether a particular event is genocide.”

His statement provoked a sharp reaction from the broadcaster, which denounced Gulen’s attempt to pressure the channel to cancel its broadcast, while promising to air the documentary on Sunday despite the warning.

“We can never accept this. We will protest against any attempt to exert pressure that threatens freedom of expression,” said TV4’s program director, Viveka Hansson, in a written statement on the company’s website.

Speaking to Expressen, Gulen  that he had “full respect for freedom of expression and for the channel,” but refused to retract his plea to TV4 to withdraw the documentary piece.

“These are my feelings. It is their decision. I don’t know if they will change it. They can transmit it, if they want. But I can say what I feel, too,” he said, as cited by Expressen.

Hanson said that the message’s polite tone should not deceive the public, pointing out that while “the email is polite, the message cannot be mistaken.” She sees the request as an attempt to prevent a Swedish media outlet from broadcasting an opinion that “the Turkish embassy would not appreciate,” according to Expressen.

Swedish MP and Left Party chairman Jonas Sjöstedt also weighed in on the mounting controversy, urging the Swedish government to fend off Turkey’s attack on the national media.

“It is unacceptable that the country [Turkey] is seeking to silence media in Sweden and it [the government] must take a hard stance against such actions,” he said, adding that Stockholm should recall its ambassador from Turkey “to make clear that what you are doing in Turkey, which is very bad for the media, you cannot do in Sweden,” according to Expressen.

Hansson also pointed out in her statement that the attack on TV4 comes just days after Sweden’s Green Party tried to hush up another Swedish station, SVT, which broadcast a story critical of Sweden’ former housing minister, Mehmet Kaplan, who is a Green Party member of Turkish origin. The party’s press officer, Magnus Johansson, reportedly called on SWT to drop the coverage of Kaplan’s case, while offering to provide the station with access to the party’s top bosses for a story on Green Party candidate Yasri Khan, who is under fire for his unwillingness to shake hands with a female host from TV4.

“I did not actually believe my ears. I have never seen anything similar from a representative of a political party in Sweden,” Anders Holmberg, an SVT presenter.

Kaplan resigned last Monday amid allegations that he has ties to the Turkish ultra-nationalist Gray Wolves movement and the retired head of the Turkish National Association of Sweden, Barbaros Leylani, who has previously called on the Turkish people to kill “Armenian dogs.”

Meanwhile, an orchestra in Germany has accused Turkey of forcing it to change the name of a concert it is scheduled to give on April 30, as well as remove a piece from its program that calls the massacre of Armenians a genocide.

The name of the event is “Aghet,” a term commonly used by Armenians to describe the events of 1915 as genocide, whose literal translation in English is “catastrophe.”

The Dresden Symphony orchestra said that Turkey’s delegation to the EU had reportedly asked the European Commission (EC), which is financially supporting the event, to defund the concert and remove its title from the EC’s official website. While the Commission declined to withdraw the €200,000 ($224,500) it had pledged to the musicians, it did remove the announcement of the concert.

“Due to concerns raised regarding the wording used in the project description, the Commission temporarily withdrew it,” a spokesperson for the Commission said.

The orchestra’s director, Markus Rindt, slammed Turkey’s bold interference as an “an infringement on freedom of expression.”

“You have to call it what it was,” said the director. “We cannot quibble when it comes to genocide,” he added, as  by Die Welt.

The project premiered in Berlin last year to mark the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide was commemorated today at Istanbul’s Hayderpasha train station, the reports.

Participants held banners and photographs of the intellectuals arrested and killed in 1915, and posters demanding recognition and reparations for the Armenian Genocide.

In 1915, members of the Istanbul Armenian community, including intellectual and cultural leaders, were arrested in their homes, detained at the city’s central prison (now the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Sultanahmet Square), and then sent off to the Haydarpasha train station from where they were sent to the interior to their deaths.

The following statement by the Human Rights Association of Turkey Istanbul branch was read in Turkish, Armenian, and English at today’s commemoration.

***

The Genocide that Lasts

When a crime goes unpunished, it continues to be committed. Denial perpetuates genocide.

The Armenian Genocide is a crime against humanity that continues to be committed because it is denied and its perpetrators have gone unpunished.

One-hundred-and-one years ago today, people from all walks of life from the Armenian community, but especially leading intellectuals, poets, writers, and journalists, were shipped here to Haydarpasha from Sarayburnu before they were sent to their deaths in Anatolia. Very few survived; most were killed.

These arrests represent the beginning of the genocidal process realized by way of clear orders by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the central government of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the effective organization of the provinces for the execution of these orders and the participation of the local inhabitants.

Before 1915, according to the census of the Istanbul Patriarchate, the Armenian population of the Empire was 2 million, and Armenians lived in 2,925 settlements comprising cities, districts, and villages. These communities had 1,996 schools, 173,000 male and female students, and 2,538 churches and monasteries. The Armenian social existence, which had been strikingly vibrant, was destroyed not only by outright massacres and exile, but also through the demolition of social infrastructure such as schools, libraries, churches, etc., as well as material dispossession. Their institutions, culture, history, and civilization, even the vestiges of their existence were subject to destruction.

The genocide of 1915 was also “SEYFO,” the mass massacre and exile of the Assyrian people. It was also the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor and Pontus.

If we have declared that genocide denial perpetuates genocide, it is because denial becomes institutionalized, and in fact socialized and internalized by generations of perpetrators. Denial continually reproduces hatred against the identity of the victims.

By going unpunished, this crime against humanity was perpetuated in Turkey through coups, the bloody suppression of the Kurdish insurrection, the Dersim genocide, the incineration and evisceration of villages in the 90’s, and the reduction of millions of people to refugees in their own country. The 1915 genocide and its denial—the assumption that the state can act outside the law and commit crimes whenever it wants—became entrenched in the system and in minds; it was naturalized, and normalized. It is by and large for this reason that coups, torture, forced disappearances, murders by unknown assailants came to be seen not as crimes but as necessary and mandatory executions of the state. Those who were responsible were protected by the mantle of impunity.

Today, this internalized state mentality has resulted in the war that the state has been waging  since August 2015 against the Kurds with its army, with tanks and cannons; it is also at the root of the absence of strong mass resistance from the Turkish people to this war.

As we have said, genocide denial perpetuates genocide. Denial is the exculpation of the perpetrator and the criminalization of the victim. From course books to special publications, from newspapers to television programs, Armenians have been represented as those who deserve genocide. Since the foundation of the Republic, the Armenians of Turkey have been living to this day in a society that remains hostile to them and in close quarters with the grandchildren of perpetrators who think exactly the way their predecessors did.

Whenever the state feels threatened, the usual hostility against Armenians spikes up to horrific levels. Armenians are all the more threatened today under the circumstances of a thoroughly racist war perpetrated by the state against its own citizens, the Kurds, against the grain of all universal laws of war.

Genocide denial leads to the indoctrination of anti-Armenian nationalist generations, to a never-ending offense against the memory of the victims, and to the laceration of their descendants’ wounds. As descendants of perpetrators, we too are responsible for denial; we live with this profound shame.

There has been no end to blood, tears, and laments in Turkey since the genocide and its denial. This is because the crime has gone unpunished and in fact continued with new crimes whose perpetrators too have gone unpunished—because justice has not been established. The graveless dead of the genocide continue to suffer their torment.

We have always said and hereby repeat:

– As long as the genocide remains unrecognized,

– As long as an apology is not offered to the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks who have dispersed all over the world,

– As long as the confiscated cash and property remains uncompensated,

– As long as the war against the Kurds continues and the Kurds’ right to self-determination remains unrecognized,

– As long as an order in keeping with democracy, the rule of law, and human rights is not established,

justice will not be established. The curse of the genocide will not be lifted, and these regions will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a statement of fact.

RECOGNIZE THE GENOCIDE WITH ALL ITS LEGAL IMPLICATIONS! ESTABLISH JUSTICE!

President Nicos Anastasiades on Sunday condemned the Armenian Genocide by the Ottomans, which he called “a disgrace in the history of mankind,” reports.

“The government expresses its full solidarity and sympathy to the Armenian people, supporting the effort for recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the international community,” Anastasiades said in a written statement.

On Saturday night House President Yiannakis Omirou said all civilised states should recognise the Armenian genocide to avert similar crimes against humanity.

He was speaking at service at the Armenian church in Nicosia to mark Sunday’s anniversary.

Omirou condemned Turkey`s policy of ethnic cleansing and expansionist designs and reiterated Cyprus` solidarity with the Armenian people, in their struggle to have the genocide recognised by the international community. Armenians in Cyprus are part and parcel of the history and the struggles of the people of Cyprus and identify with the traditions of the country in addition to contributing to political, economic and social life, he said.

Recalling that April 24 has been designated as Day to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, Omirou referred to the ruthless methods Ottoman Turks had applied to wipe out the Armenians.

“The Republic of Cyprus stands firm by the Armenian people in their struggle for justice and recognition of the genocide,” he pledged, recalling that the House has adopted numerous resolutions recognising and condemning the genocide and brandishing as criminal offence the denial of the Armenian and other genocides.

It is imperative that all civilised states recognise the Armenian Genocide to avert a repetition of such atrocities, Omirou stressed, pointing out that crimes of the past have gone unpunished, in spite of being proven by historical facts.