WOW If anyone saw the PBS Documentary on the Armenian Genocide click here

[Hovik]

Letter from Edgar Hagopian to Creator of PBS Documentary

cc: National Listserve

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for an outstanding documentary. Unquestionably the best documentary on the Armenian Genocide I have seen.

I would like to point out to those anti-Semites in the Armenian community your Jewish heritage.

In addition, Atom Egoyan's award winning film "Ararat" was produced by Robert Lantos another Jew. Finally, the distribution and promotion of the film "Ararat" was by another Jew, Harry Weinstein, the founder of Miramax Films, after MGM turned down Mr. Egoyan claiming the film would not be profitable.

Below is the url for an article by Harut Sassounian explaining Mr. Weinstein's reasoning and explanation for his support.

I know that the majority of Armenians and Jews in the Diaspora express a kinship with each other. Unfortunately, because of Israel's relationship with Turkey, there are those in our community that can't separate the issues.

The Armenians and the Jews have much in common. Thank you for strengthening this bond.

With sincere respect and appreciation.

Edgar Hagopian

for Harut Sassounian's article go to-

http://adl.hayway.org/default_zone/gb/html/page2389.html

[Tatoul]

Awesome, just totally Awesome! It was both emotional and rational, somehow both at the same time.

Incidentally, I also saw the panel discussion afterward, because they showed it in my city. And I have to tell you guys, I wish they would have showed that panel discussion everywhere. We shouldn't have protested it. Balakian and Akcam literally made McCarthy and Omer look like clowns. Actually, McCarthy came off looking like a chauvinistic idiot, while Omer was nothing more than a clown. Also, the moderator, Scott Simon, was at times visibly annoyed by Omer's inability to articulate a rational position. He was actually a pretty good moderator and asked some really good questions that further exposed Omer and McCarthy as what they really are.

I have even more respect for Balakian now than I had before. He is such a good speaker and debator. And Akcam is very passionate about his position as well. At one point, when Simon asked why it was so important to call it a Genocide rather than a tragedy or a catastrophe or some other key word, Akcam got all worked up and said that it's actually totally ridiculous to discuss whether or not it was Genocide, because there is no other word to describe what it was, today we call the killing of 7000 men in Bosnia a Genocide, and we're not going to call what happened to the Armenians a Genocide! (that's my paraphrase of what Akcam said).

Balakian was awesome. He exposed that McCarthy works for the Turkish government, and McCarthy got so pissed off about that. He said it was a lie, and Balakian pulled out a two page article from Reuters which talks about how McCarthy advises the Turkish govt. on how to deny the Genocide and offered to read from it. McCarthy was red with anger. It was awesome.

The last point that McCarthy made was that even more Muslims were killed than Armenians and that it was more like a civil war or a mutual genocide than what was portrayed in the movie. Balakian got the last word and he used that opportunity to basically point out the absurdity of McCarthy's last point. He said that if we are going to believe that a powerless, unarmed Christian minority was capable of comitting violence on any significant scale, then we are entering the realm of the absurd. (again paraphrasing, his words were much more eloquent). It was a great way to end the discussion.

I thought the discussion was very good too and exactly like I thought it would have been and maybe even better. The one thing that I was concerned with was how the host would be. That is, would he perhaps be a little too neutral and give the turkish side equal credibility, but that didn't turn out to be the case and he said it exactly how it was.

I had no doubt as to how such a panel discussion would turn out as we have seen time and time again how the turkish lies and excuses stand up against our evidence on the net and I know they would get humiliated very much the same way in a panel discussion as they would be using the same old worn out and tired excuses and that's why I wasn't opposing the panel discussion. After watching it, I believe that it helped our side immensely and it was wrong to oppose it, that's why I didn't sign the petition and I find the turks were really stupid to want to have it shown, because it made them look like the idiots they really are.

When McCarthy got all worked up and denied working "for" the turkish government, Balakian corrected him and said he didn't say "for", he said "with" (which is pretty much the same thing anyway, but McCarthy couldn't deny it) and offered to show the extensive documentation that he had brought with him as proof, needless to say McCarthy didn't want to see it. Blakian and Akcam made the two monkeys look like total fools. The parts I liked the best was when the turk kept on with all this Bristol, Bristol stuff as his proof that there was no genocide, the host of the show pointed out how redicilous it was for him to bring the testimony of a single peron to challende the testimonies of thousands that say it was a genocide. The funniest part of the discussion was when the turk said, "I find this all very confusing," and at the end of the discussion when the host said it was over, the turk put out his hands as in the gesture, "What happened?", stupid turks. I wish we could have more panel discussion like that.

Some things were edited out of the documentary by PBS and I would really like to know exactly what was edited out. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but when they showed that old drawing (which was originally printed in several books from 1895-96) of the burning house with turkish soldiers outside one of which had a small child by the mouth, they had cut part of the picture where it shows the baby up in the air at the end of the beyonett of the other turk and I'm sure it wasn't done by mistake, but purposely cut off as normally the whole picture would have been shown.

[TurQ]

Well Balakian should also tell us how this documentary has been shoot and who sponsored and whom did mr Golderberg worked "with".
Justin Mccarthy's view might overlap or even he could've been financially sponsored by Turkish government I dont think there is nothing wrong with that. You dont think that Akcam is working independently right?

there you go

http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2006/03/coming_soon_to_viewers_like_you_the_armenian.html

Anyways I missed the airing, I'll check out for next time


"
. . where does this preliminary back and forth about the still unseen documentary and panel discussion leave me? More illuminated but still uneasy about a couple of things, given the intense pressures exerted by both sides.

One is the participation of Armenian-Americans in the funding of the documentary; not because I fear they had any influence or because I don't trust PBS and the producer to prevent any influence, but because it would just be better to not have it. I know money is tight and I don't know how this would get funded otherwise, but there it is; a factor in my head.




[QUOTE=Tatoul]

When McCarthy got all worked up and denied working "for" the turkish government, Balakian corrected him and said he didn't say "for", he said "with" (which is pretty much the same thing anyway, but McCarthy couldn't deny it) and offered to show the extensive documentation that he had brought with him as proof, needless to say McCarthy didn't want to see it. Blakian and Akcam made the two monkeys look like total fools. The parts I liked the best was when the turk kept on with all this Bristol, Bristol stuff as his proof that there was no genocide, the host of the show pointed out how redicilous it was for him to bring the testimony of a single peron to challende the testimonies of thousands that say it was a genocide. QUOTE]

[Soorp Asdvadz]

Does anyone have a copy of that discussion? It would be really nice to have it in America...

[phantom]

[QUOTE=TurQ]Well Balakian should also tell us how this documentary has been shoot and who sponsored and whom did mr Golderberg worked "with".
Justin Mccarthy's view might overlap or even he could've been financially sponsored by Turkish government I dont think there is nothing wrong with that. You dont think that Akcam is working independently right?

there you go

http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2006/03/coming_soon_to_viewers_like_you_the_armenian.html

Anyways I missed the airing, I'll check out for next time


"
. . where does this preliminary back and forth about the still unseen documentary and panel discussion leave me? More illuminated but still uneasy about a couple of things, given the intense pressures exerted by both sides.

One is the participation of Armenian-Americans in the funding of the documentary; not because I fear they had any influence or because I don't trust PBS and the producer to prevent any influence, but because it would just be better to not have it. I know money is tight and I don't know how this would get funded otherwise, but there it is; a factor in my head.

When McCarthy got all worked up and denied working "for" the turkish government, Balakian corrected him and said he didn't say "for", he said "with" (which is pretty much the same thing anyway, but McCarthy couldn't deny it) and offered to show the extensive documentation that he had brought with him as proof, needless to say McCarthy didn't want to see it. Blakian and Akcam made the two monkeys look like total fools. The parts I liked the best was when the turk kept on with all this Bristol, Bristol stuff as his proof that there was no genocide, the host of the show pointed out how redicilous it was for him to bring the testimony of a single peron to challende the testimonies of thousands that say it was a genocide. QUOTE]

And who made Schindler's List, and the countless Holocaust documentaries that exist. Does that mean they are not true? Until you see the movie, your words are meaningless.

[TurQ]

Phantom

What i was saying is Balakian's accusation is not consistent.

I have not commented on the documentary yet.

But I heard that in one part there is a letter from a Kurdish soldier saying he himself killed 300 Armenians. I was wondering if the documentary gives references to those documents.

And who made Schindler's List, and the countless Holocaust documentaries that exist. Does that mean they are not true? Until you see the movie, your words are meaningless.

[Tatoul]

And who made Schindler's List, and the countless Holocaust documentaries that exist. Does that mean they are not true? Until you see the movie, your words are meaningless.

I don't understand why you quoted what I wrote and replied with this.

BTW, Shildler's list wasn't a documentary and what Goldberg made isn't a movie as some people are calling it.

[phantom]

I don't understand why you quoted what I wrote and replied with this.

BTW, Shildler's list wasn't a documentary and what Goldberg made isn't a movie as some people are calling it.

I wasn't quoting you, I was quoting TurQ, who had quoted you. My point was in response to TurQ's complaint that the Goldberg documentary was funded by Armenians, i.e., reducing its credibility. And I was saying that Schindler's list, as well as documentaries on the Jewish Holocaust, were often funded by Jews, and does that mean they are not accurate.

[phantom]

Phantom

What i was saying is Balakian's accusation is not consistent.

I have not commented on the documentary yet.

But I heard that in one part there is a letter from a Kurdish soldier saying he himself killed 300 Armenians. I was wondering if the documentary gives references to those documents.

It is consistent. Neither Balakian, nor Akcam get their funding from the Armenian government or any other Armenian group, whereas both of the other panelists do get their funding from the Turkish government.

As for the documentary, it was funded by Armenians, because who else gives a xxxx about what happened to our ancestors? Should we have waited for the Turkish govt. to fund it?

The letter did not say that he personally killed 300 people. The letter said that they (as a group) killed 1200 Armenians, praise be to Allah. A citation to the letter is not made, but I'm sure if you want to see the original, you can contact the director and ask for it.

[TurQ]

Phantom I was just commenting on Balakian's accusation to Mccarthy.

I wasn't quoting you, I was quoting TurQ, who had quoted you. My point was in response to TurQ's complaint that the Goldberg documentary was funded by Armenians, i.e., reducing its credibility. And I was saying that Schindler's list, as well as documentaries on the Jewish Holocaust, were often funded by Jews, and does that mean they are not accurate.