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Washington Post- January 26, 1919

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  • Washington Post- January 26, 1919

    The Washington Post Perpetuates a Destructive Myth
    By Khatchig Mouradian

    Jewcy.com
    Nov. 2, 2007

    The Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106) has attracted enormous
    media attention since it was passed by the House International Affairs
    Committee on October 10. However, the content of many of the articles,
    columns and stories make one thing clear: Writers across the United
    States were ill-prepared to tackle the issue of the Armenian genocide,
    simply because they knew very little about it.

    One case in point is Richard Cohen's article in the Washington Post,
    titled "Turkey's War on the Truth" (Oct. 16, 2007). Cohen makes
    arguments based on false premises. After conceding--with
    condescension--that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 was "plenty
    bad," he concludes that it falls short of genocide "because not all
    Armenians...were...affected." Clearly, if we follow his train of
    thought, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and several other cases should not
    be labeled as "genocide."

    Cohen's standards are clearly different from those of the UN
    Convention defining genocide, but Cohen doesn't just introduce his own
    novel definition of genocide, he also creates his own facts. He
    suggests that jurist Raphael Lemkin, the author of the Genocide
    Convention, coined the term "genocide" based solely on "what the Nazis
    were doing to the Jews." This is blatantly wrong. Although this
    factual error was pointed out by many--including myself--to the
    editors of the Washington Post, no correction was issued and, to this
    day, no letter to the editor on this issue has appeared in the paper.

    To set the record straight, the horrors of the Armenian genocide--and
    not only the Holocaust--played a central role in Lemkin's lifelong
    pursuit to find a name for the ultimate crime against humanity--the
    cleansing of a group--and to incorporate into international law the
    prevention of this crime and the punishment of its perpetrators.

    The destruction of the Armenians came to Lemkin's attention when, in
    1920, Soghomon Tehlirian--an Armenian whose entire family was killed
    during the genocide--assassinated Talaat Pasha, the mastermind behind
    the Armenian genocide, in Berlin. Lemkin read about Tehlirian's trial
    and, during a discussion with his professor at the University of Lvov,
    asked, "It is a crime for Tehlirian to kill a man, but it is not a
    crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million men?" His
    professor argued that states are sovereign and they can do what they
    want to their citizens. "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a
    flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business. If you
    interfere, you are trespassing," his professor argued. Lemkin was
    proud of Tehlirian for defending "the moral order of mankind," but
    wanted international law--and not individuals--to punish the
    perpetrators.

    Lemkin, a Polish Jew who lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust, coined
    the term "genocide" in 1944 based on the planned extermination of the
    Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 and the Jews by the Nazis
    during World War II. He worked tirelessly to have the United Nations
    pass a law on the prevention and punishment of that crime. Finally, on
    Dec. 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly ratified the Genocide
    Convention.

    In a CBS program first broadcast in 1949, Lemkin said, "I became
    interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians... So, you
    see, as a lawyer, I thought that a crime should not be punished by the
    victims, but should be punished by a court, by a national law."

    In an article in the Hairenik Weekly (later the Armenian Weekly)
    published on Jan. 1, 1959, he confirmed that the suffering of the
    Armenians had paved the way to the ratification of the Genocide
    Convention:

    "The sufferings of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into
    the Euphrates River or massacred on the way to [the north Syrian
    desert of] Der-el-Zor have prepared the way for the adoption for the
    Genocide Convention by the United Nations. ... This is the reason why
    the Armenians of the entire world were specifically interested in the
    Genocide Convention. They filled the galleries of the drafting
    committee at the third General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris
    when the Genocide Convention was discussed."

    At the end of this article, Lemkin asserted, "One million Armenians
    died, but a law against the murder of peoples was written with the ink
    of their blood and the spirit of their sufferings."

    There are numerous similar references in Lemkin's private papers as
    well as in the press. In an age where information is readily
    accessible, columnists and editors have little excuse to make grave
    factual mistakes. When they do, they ought to correct themselves
    promptly--unless, of course, their aim is to perpetuate those
    mistakes.

    ***

    Want to read more about the origins of the concept of genocide? Check
    out either of the following books:

    Steven L. Jacobs, "Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide," in
    Richard Hovannisian's Looking Backward, Moving Forward (Transaction
    Publishers, 2003), pp. 125-135.

    Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,
    (Basic Books, 2002).

    ***

    About Khatchig Mouradian
    Khatchig Mouradian is editor of the Armenian Weekly. From 2000 to 2007
    he was an editor of the Lebanese-Armenian Aztag Daily. His writing has
    been translated into more than 10 languages, and he has translated
    such works as Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" (Hamazkayin, 2004). He
    also contributes to a number of U.S. and European publications.

    Mouradian has presented papers on genocide and the media at
    conferences such as the 5th Workshop on Armenian-Turkish Scholarship,
    held at NYU in 2006.


    General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”
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