To reap twice-blessed rewards

[Gogor]

ADL Presents Prime Minister of Turkey With Distinguished Statesman Award

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) bestowed its Distinguished Statesman Award upon Mesut Yilmaz, Prime Minister of Turkey, recognizing him for his efforts in promoting democracy, religious toler-ance and pluralism.

Howard P. Berkowitz, ADL National Chairman, welcomed a gathering of leaders of Jewish organizations, Turkish offi-cials and United Nations diplomats to a dinner honoring the Prime Minister Yilmaz . "In Turkey, ADL found an historic and consistent friend. A modern state with a rich secular tradition, Turkey and ADL share common concerns on issues of separation of church and state," Mr. Berkowitz said. "Turkey has been a good friend to the Jewish people, taking in our refugees from persecution for centuries. Turkey's spirit of humanitarianism, expressed in its relations with Israel, and it partnership with the United States, guarantees her place as a conduit between East and West," he said.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, who presented the honor to Prime Minister Yilmaz said, "in a part of the world where the words 'democratic,' 'secular' and 'pluralistic' are not only antithetical to reality, but an anathema to most of the states in it, Turkey stands as a shining example of shared Western values."

Mr. Foxman praised Turkey's role in the Middle East peace process, stressing the importance of Turkey's relationship with Israel. "Despite pressures, despite attempts at intimidation, that special strategic military and people-to-people relationship flourishes and helps build peace in the volatile Middle East," he said, citing the stand Turkey took at the Organization of Islamic Countries' Conference attesting to the strength of its relations with Israel and its refusal to be a party to anti-Israel proclamations and resolutions.
In receipt of the award Prime Minister Yilmaz said, "I accept the prize on behalf of all the people of Turkey, for this award pays tribute to a few simple ideas deep in my nation's soul: the idea that tolerance anywhere should stir the con-science everywhere; that religious discrimination, whether against Jews, Muslims, or Christians, has no place in a civi-lized society; and that the most effective way to unclench fists of hate is to open minds and expand the human heart. I am proud such shared attitudes have forged deep and lasting friendship between the Turkish people and the Jewish commu-nity. And I am prouder still that whenever Jews have been targets, Turkey has offered herself as a haven from hatred."

Pointing out that Turkey has served as a haven for Jews since the fourteenth century, Mr. Foxman described how Turkey has helped Jews throughout history, from the Crusades, to the Spanish Inquisition, to World War II. "A little over five hundred years ago, the Jewish community of Spain, after suffering the terrors of the Inquisition, was expelled from that country. The stateless, brutalized people found a place of refuge in Turkey, one of the only countries in the world that opened its doors and its arms to Jews," said Mr. Foxman. "Half a century ago, when Europe again suffered an avalanche of hatred and murder, and many countries locked their doors against refugees fleeing mass destruction, Turkey again was a haven for the desperate and opened its doors to Jews."

Also present at the award ceremony were official representatives of the Turkish Jewish community who have worked to make the American public aware of the diverse and rich legacy of Turkish Jewry. "These citizens of Turkey have pros-pered as Turks and as Jews," said Mr. Foxman, "and have always stood proudly and publicly to proclaim their allegiance and support for their native country, and remain optimistic that the unique Turkish tradition of religious tolerance, plural-ism and democracy will continue in the nation that has been so hospitable to Jews for centuries."

In reference to an ADL fact-finding mission to Turkey earlier this year Mr. Foxman noted that, while there, ADL leaders "raised concerns about issues relating to human rights abuses and freedom of the press violations. We applauded the re-forms introduced and urged more serious attention to the problems that still exist."

Mr. Foxman expressed confidence that Prime Minister Yilmaz would not provide an atmosphere for extremism. "We wel-come the Turkish leadership's and your personal stated commitment to further democratic reforms and human and minor-ity rights. We urged Turkey to educate its students and citizens about the Holocaust, and we are greatly encouraged that Turkey, along with other World War II-neutral nations, has joined the international effort to examine its dealings with Nazi Germany," said Mr. Foxman.
Mr. Foxman also expressed disappointment with the European Union's exclusion of Turkey from membership negotia-tions and voiced concern that Turkey not be rejected because it is a Moslem country.

Lina Filiba, Secretary General of the Turkish Jewish Community read a message of appreciation and Mark Parris, United States Ambassador to Turkey extended greetings from the United States government.

The ADL's Distinguished Statesman Award is presented to those leaders who exhibit an extraordinary dedication to fur-thering the achievement of regional and world peace, who posses a special commitment to promoting human and civil rights, and who contribute to significant international events which further the cause of pluralism, tolerance and democ-racy around the world. Previous award recipients include Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, Norwegian For-eign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst, German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, Ambassador Madeleine Albright, and Ambas-sador Richard Holbrooke.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through pro-grams and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

[Gogor]

An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No!

By Bruce Fein

Part one.
Both Armenians and Muslims in Eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman Empire experienced harrowing casualties and grip-ping privations during World War I.
Hundreds of thousands perished. Most were innocent. All deserve pity and respect. Their known and unknown graves tes-tify to President John F. Kennedy's lament that "Life is unfair." An Armenian tombstone is worth a Muslim tombstone, and vice versa. No race, religious, or ethnic group stands above or below another in the cathedral of humanity. To para-phrase Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice," Hath not everyone eyes? hath not everyone hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer...If you prick anyone, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does he not laugh? if you poison him, does he not die?

These sentiments must be emphasized before entering into the longstanding dispute over allegations of Armenian geno-cide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I and its aftermath. Genocide is a word bristling with passion and moral depravity. It typically evokes images of Jews dying like cattle in Nazi cyanide chambers in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belson, Dacau, and other extermination camps. It is customarily confined in national laws and international covenants to the mass killing or repression of a racial, religious, or ethnic group with the intent of partial or total extermination. Thus, to accuse Turks of Armenian genocide is grave business, and should thus be appraised with scrupulous care for historical accuracy. To do less would not only be unjust to the accused, but to vitiate the arresting meaning that genocide should enjoy in the tale of unspeakable human horrors.

It cannot be repeated enough that to discredit the Armenian genocide allegation is not to deny that Armenian deaths and suffering during the war should evoke tears in all but the stone-hearted. The same is true for the even greater number of contemporaneous Turkish deaths and privations. No effort should be spared to avoid transforming an impartial inquest into the genocide allegations to poisonous recriminations over whether Armenians or Turks as a group were more or less culpable or victimized. Healing and reconciliation is made of more magnanimous and compassionate stuff.
In sum, disprove Armenian genocide is not to belittle the atrocities and brutalities that World War I inflicted on the Arme-nian people of Eastern Anatolia.

I. Sympathy for All, Malice Towards None "War is hell," lamented steely Union General William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War. The frightful carnage of World War I confirmed and fortified that vivid definition.
The deep pain that wrenches any group victimized by massacres and unforgiving privation in wartime, however, fre-quently distorts or imbalances recollections. That phenomenon found epigrammatic expression in United States Senator Hiram Johnson's World War I quip that truth is the first casualty of war. It is customary among nations at war to manipu-late the reporting of events to blacken the enemy and to valorize their own and allied forces. In other words, World War I was no exception, about which more anon.

II. The Armenian Genocide Accusation

The Ottoman Turks are accused of planning and executing a scheme to exterminate its Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia beginning on or about April 24, 1915 by relocating them hundreds of miles to the Southwest and away from the Russian war front and massacring those who resisted. The mass relocation (often mischaracterized as "deportation") ex-posed the Armenians to mass killings by marauding Kurds and other Muslims and deaths from malnutrition, starvation, and disease. After World War I concluded, the Ottoman Turks are said to have continued their Armenian genocide during the Turkish War of Independence concluded in 1922.

The number of alleged Armenian casualties began at approximately 600,000, but soon inflated to 2 million. The entire pre-war Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia is best estimated at 1.3 to 1.5 million.

A. Was there an intent to exterminate Ottoman Armenians in whole or in part?

The evidence seems exceptionally thin. The Government's relocation decree was a wartime measure inspired by national self-preservation, neither aimed at Armenians generally (those outside sensitive war territory were left undisturbed) nor with the goal of death by relocation hardships and hazards. The Ottoman government issued unambiguous orders to pro-tect and feed Armenians during their relocation ordeal, but were unable because of war emergencies on three fronts and war shortages affecting the entire population to insure their proper execution. The key decree provided:
"When those of Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and villages who have to be moved are transferred to their places of settlement and are on the road, their comfort must be assured and their lives and property protected; after their arrival their food should be paid for out of Refugees' Appropriations until they are definitively settled in their new homes. Property and land should be distributed to them in accordance with their previous financial situation as well as current needs; and for those among them needing further help, the government should build houses, provide cultivators and artisans with seed, tools, and equipment."

"This order is entirely intended against the extension of the Armenian Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not exe-cute it in such a manner that might cause the mutual massacre of Muslims and Armenians."
(Do you believe that anything comparable has been issued by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to his troops in Kosovo?)

The Ottoman government prosecuted more than one thousand soldiers and civilians for disobedience. Further, approxi-mately 200,000 Ottoman Armenians who were relocated to Syria lived without menace through the remainder of the war.

Relocation of populations suspected of disloyalty was a customary war measure both at the time of World War I and through at least World War II. Czarist Russia had employed it against Crimean Tatars and other ethnic Turks even in peacetime and without evidence of treasonous plotting. The United States relocated 120,000 citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War despite the glaring absence of sabotage or anti-patriotic sentiments or designs. Indeed, the Congress of the United States acknowledged the injustice in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which awarded the victims or their survivors $20,000 each.

In sum, the mass wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians from the Eastern front was no pretext for genocide. That con-clusion is fortified by the mountains of evidence showing that an alarming percentage of Armenians were treasonous and allied with the Triple Entente, especially Russia. Tens of thousands defected from the Ottoman army or evaded conscrip-tion to serve with Russia. Countless more remained in Eastern Anatolia to conduct sabotage behind Ottoman lines and to massacre Turks, including civilians. Their leaders openly called for revolt, and boasted at post-World War I peace confer-ences that Ottoman Armenians had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the victorious powers. Exemplary was a proclama-tion issued by an Armenian representative in the Ottoman parliament for Van, Papazyan. He trumpeted: "The volunteer Armenian regiments in the Caucasus should prepare themselves for battle, serve as advance units for the Russian armies to help them capture the key positions in the districts where the Armenians live, and advance into Anatolia, joining the Armenian units already there."
The Big Five victors -Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Japan acknowledged the enormous wartime ser-vice of Ottoman Armenians, and Armenia was recognized as a victor nation at the Paris Peace Conference and sister con-claves charring the post-war map. Armenians were rewarded for their treason against the Ottoman Empire in the short-lived Treaty of Sevres of 1920 (soon superceded by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne). It created an independent Armenian state carved from large swaths of Ottoman territory although they were a distinct population minority and had always been so throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule. The Treaty thus turned President Woodrow Wilson's self-determination gospel in his Fourteen Points on its head.

[Gogor]

An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No!

By Bruce Fein

Part two.
The Ottoman government thus had overwhelming evidence to suspect the loyalty of its Armenian population. And its re-location orders responded to a dire, not a contrived, war emergency. It was fighting on three fronts. The capital, Istanbul, was threatened by the Gallipoli campaign. Russia was occupying portions of Eastern Anatolia, encouraging Armenian defections, and aiding Armenian sabotage. In sum, the mass relocation of Armenians was clearly an imperative war meas-ure; it did not pivot on imaginary dangers contrived by Ottoman rulers to exterminate Armenians.

The genocide allegation is further discredited by Great Britain's unavailing attempt to prove Ottoman officials of war crimes. It occupied Ottoman territory, including Istanbul, under the 1918 Mudros Armistice. Under section 230 of the Treaty of Sevres, Ottoman officials were subject to prosecution for war crimes like genocide. Great Britain had access to Ottoman archives, but found no evidence of Armenian genocide. Scores of Ottoman Turks were detained on Malta, none-theless, under suspicion of complicity in Armenian massacres or worse. But all were released in 1922 for want of evi-dence. The British spent endless months searching hither and yon for evidence of international criminality- even enlisting the assistance of the United State yet came up with nothing that could withstand the test of truth. Rumor, hearsay, and po-lemics from anti-Turk sources was the most that could be assembled, none of which would be admissible in any fair-minded enterprise to discover facts and to assign legal responsibility.

None of this is to deny that approximately 600,000 Ottoman Armenians perished during World War I and its aftermath. But Muslims died in even greater numbers (approximately 2.5 million in Eastern Anatolia) from Armenian and Russian massacres and wartime privations as severe as that experienced by relocated Armenians. When Armenians held the oppor-tunity, they massacred Turks without mercy, as in Van, Erzurum, and Adana. The war ignited a cycle of violence between both groups, one fighting for revolutionary objectives and the other to retain their homeland intact. Both were spurred to implacability by the gruesome experience that the loser could expect no clemency.

The horrifying scale of the violence and retaliatory violence, however, were acts of private individuals or official wrong-doers. The Ottoman government discouraged and punished the crimes within the limits of its shrinking capacity. Fighting for its life on three fronts, it devoted the lion's share of its resources and manpower to staving off death, not to local law enforcement.
The emptiness of the Armenian genocide case is further demonstrated by the resort of proponents to reliance on incontest-able falsehoods or forged documents. The Talat Pasha fabrications are emblematic.

According to Armenians, he sent telegrams expounding an Ottoman policy to massacre its Armenian population that were discovered by British forces commanded by General Allenby when they captured Aleppo in 1918. Samples were pub-lished in Paris in 1920 by an Armenian author, Aram Andonian. They were also introduced at the Berlin trial of the assas-sin of Talat Pasha, and then accepted as authentic.

The British Foreign Office then conducted an official investigation that showed that the telegrams had not been discov-ered by the army but had been produced by an Armenian group based in Paris. A meticulous examination of the docu-ments revealed glaring discrepancies with the customary form, script, and phraseology of Ottoman administrative decrees, and pronounced as bogus as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Donation of Constantine.

Ditto for a quote attributed to Adolph Hitler calculated to liken the Armenians in World War I to the Holocaust victims and to arouse anger towards the Republic of Turkey. Purportedly delivered on August 22, 1939, while the Nazi invasion of Poland impended, Hitler allegedly declared: "Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my Death Head units, with the order to kill without mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Who still talks nowa-days of the extermination of the Armenians."
Armenian genocide exponents point to the statement as evidence that it served as the model for Hitler's sister plan to ex-terminate Poles, Jews, and others. Twenty-two Members of Congress on or about April 24, 1984 in the Congressional Re-cord enlisted Hitler's hideous reference to Armenian extermination as justification for supporting Armenian Martyrs' Day remembrances. As Princeton Professor Heath W. Lowry elaborates in a booklet, "The U.S. Congress and Adolph Hitler on the Armenians," it seems virtually certain that the statement was never made. The Nuremburg tribunal refused to accept it as evidence because of flimsy proof of authenticity.
The gospel for many Armenian genocide enthusiasts is Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's 1918 book, Ambassador's Morgenthau's Story. It brims with assertions that incriminate the Ottoman Turks in genocide. Professor Lowry, however, convincingly demonstrates in his monograph, "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," that his book is more propaganda, invention, exaggeration, and hyperbole than a reliable portrait of motivations and events.

According to some Armenian circles, celebrated founder of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk, confessed "Ottoman state responsibility for the Armenian genocide." That attribution is flatly false, as proven in an extended essay, "A 'Statement' Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk," by Türkkaya Ataöv.

Why would Armenian genocide theorists repeatedly uncurtain demonstrative falsehoods as evidence if the truth would prove their case? Does proof of the Holocaust rest on such imaginary inventiveness? A long array of individuals have been found guilty of participation in Hitler's genocide in courts of law hedged by rules to insure the reliability of verdicts. Adolph Eichmann's trial and conviction in an Israeli court and the Nuremburg trials before an international body of jurists are illustrative. Not a single Ottoman Turk, in contrast, has every been found guilty of Armenian genocide or its equiva-lent in a genuine court of law, although the victorious powers in World War I enjoyed both the incentive and opportunity to do so if incriminating evidence existed.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities examined the truthfulness of an Armenian genocide charge leveled by Special Rapporteur, Mr. Benjamin Whitaker, in his submission, "Study of Genocide," during its thirty-eighth session at the U.N. Office in Geneva from Au-gust 5-30, 1985. The Sub-Commission after meticulous debate refused to endorse the indictment for lack of convincing evidence, as amplified by attendee and Professor Dr. Ataöv of Ankara University in his publication, "WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GENEVA: The Truth About the 'Whitaker Report'."

B. If the evidence is so demonstratively faulty, what explains a widespread credence given to the Armenian genocide alle-gation in the United States?
As Napoleon once derisively observed, history is a fable mutually agreed upon. It is not Euclidean geometry. Some bias invariably is smuggled in by the most objective historians; others view history as a manipulable weapon either to fight an adversary, or to gain a political, economic, or sister material advantage, or to satisfy a psychological or emotional need.

History most resembles truth when competing versions of events do battle in the marketplace of ideas with equally tal-ented contestants and before an impartial audience with no personal or vested interest in the outcome. That is why the ad-versarial system of justice in the United States is the hallmark of its legal system and a beacon to the world.

The Armenian genocide allegation for long decades was earmarked by an absence of both historical rigor and scrupulous regard for reliable evidence and truth. The Ottoman Empire generally received bad reviews in the West for centuries, in part because of its predominant Muslim creed and military conquests in Europe. It was a declared enemy of Britain, France, and Russia during World War I, and a de facto enemy of the United States. Thus, when the Armenian genocide allegation initially surfaced, the West was predisposed towards acceptance that would reinforce their stereotypical and pejorative view of Turks that had been inculcated for centuries. The reliability of obviously biased sources was generally ignored. Further, the Republic of Turkey created in 1923 was not anxious to defend its Ottoman predecessor which it had opposed for humiliating capitulations to World War I victors and its palsied government. Atatürk was seeking a new, secular, and democratic dispensation and distance from the Ottoman legacy.

Armenians in the United States were also more vocal, politically active and sophisticated, numerous, and wealthy than Turks. The Armenian lobby has skillfully and forcefully marketed the Armenian genocide allegation in the corridors of power, in the media, and in public school curricula. They had been relatively unchallenged until some opposing giants in the field of Turkish studies appeared on the scene to discredit and deflate the charge by fastidious research and a richer understanding of the circumstances of frightful Armenian World War I casualties. Professor of History at the University of Louisville, Justin McCarthy, and Princeton Professor Heath Lowry stand at the top of the list. Professor McCarthy's 1995 book, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, is a landmark. Turkish Americans have also organized to present facts and views about the Armenian genocide allegation and other issues central to United States-Turkish relations. But the intellectual playing field remains sharply tilted in favor of the Armenians. Since public officials with no foreign policy responsibilities confront no electoral or other penalty for echoing the Armenian story, they generally acquiesce to gain or to solidify their standing among them.

The consequence has been not only bad and biased history unbecoming an evenhanded search for truth, but a gratuitous irritant in the relations between Turkey and the United States. The former was a steadfast ally throughout the Cold War, and Turkey remains a cornerstone of NATO and Middle East peace. It is also a strong barrier against religious fundamen-talism, and an unflagging partner in fighting international terrorism and drug trafficking. Turkey is also geostrategically indispensable to exporting oil and gas from Central Asia to the West through pipelines without reliance on the Russian Federation, Iran, Afghanistan or other dicey economic partners.
Finally, endorsing the false Armenian genocide indictment may embolden Armenian terrorist organizations (for example, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) to kill and mutilate Turks, as they did a few decades ago in as-sassinating scores of Turkish diplomats and bombing buildings both in the United States and elsewhere. They have been relatively dormant in recent years, but to risk a resurgence from intoxication with a fortified Armenian genocide brew would be reckless.

III. Conclusion

The Armenian genocide accusation fails for want of proof. It attempts to paint the deaths and privations of World War I in prime colors, when the authentic article is chiaroscuro. Both Muslims and Armenians suffered horribly and neither dis-played a morality superior to the other. Continuing to hurl the incendiary charge of genocide on the Turkish doorstep ob-structs the quest for amity between Armenia and the Republic of Turkey and warmer relations between Armenians and Turks generally.

Isn't it time to let the genocide allegation fade away and to join hands in commemorating the losses of both communities during World War I and its aftermath?

[Gogor]

Deceptive Linguistic Structures in the Phrase 'The Holocaust'

ROBERT A. HALL, JR.

At present, the phrase the Holocaust is almost universally used to refer to various aspects of the situation in which Jews found themselves under the National Socialist regime from 1933 to 1945, in Germany and occupied territories. In this usage, there are several features of linguistic, graphemic, and scmantic structures which command the belief of the average hearer in the reality of "the Holocaust" (normally quite outside his or her awareness) and at the same time leave its reference confusingly unclear. These features include the meaning of the definite article (reality), the singular number and capitalization (uniqueness), and the effects (confusion and ambiguity) of the reference of this expression.

l. The definite article the is often thought of as an "itsy-bit" word, unstressed and of little or no importance in contrast to words which are fully stressed, such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Yet the English definite article has a specific meaning and semantic function of its own. It commands a hearer's or reader s belief in the reality of what is referred to by the noun it modifies, and sets up a tacit presupposition, for the rest of the discourse, that this reality has been estab-lished. Consider the following joke, in which someone says: "If the dog would only catch a rabbit, we could have rab-bit-pie for dinner – if we had a dog." The humor of this utterance consists in the contradiction between what we are led to believe at the outset of the sentence -- i.e. that the speaker has a really existing dog -- and the information given at the end, namely that he does not have a dog.

In the case of "the Holocaust;" the use of the definite article has a similar effect. Once we speak of "the Holocaust;" the presupposition is set up that we are referring to a reality, so that further discourse on the topic is perforce commit-ted to acceptance of that reality. How could one even query the existence of whatever is referred to by that phrase? Hence "to deny the reality of the Holocaust" has come to be a stock slogan, used against anyone who questions any aspect of what is alleged concerning the experiences of Jews under Nazism, or even (as I know from from personal experience) to report on what others have said. It is as if one were denying the reality of the sun or the moon or the earth.

2. The meaning of the singular number of a noun in English is, of course, that only one member of the phenomena re-ferred to exists or is relevant to the situation. In writing, we emphasize the uniqueness of an object or phenomenon by capitalizing the noun, thus giving it somewhat of the status of a proper name. There are for instance, a number of "wa-ter-gaps" in the Pennsylvania mountains, but around Stroudsburg one refers to the Delaware Water-Gap simply as the Water-Gap. Similarly with historical events, such as the Crucifixion. Many thousands of poor wretches died agonizing deaths on crosses, but for Christians, there was only one such object, the Cross, and one such event, the Crucifixion.

In the case of the Holocaust, likewise, use of the singular and capitalization of the noun serve to emphasize to any hearer (and even more so, to any reader) its uniqueness. Various commentators such as Michael A. Hoffman and Jo-seph Sobran, have been in the vanguard in expressing a growing awareness that the Jewish experience under the Nazis was only one of many such -- no matter how we define it -- that many groups have undergone since ancient times.[ Yet insistence on the uniqueness of "the Holocaust" has led even to such excesses as refusal to countenance the foun-dation of a Roman Catholic convent at Auschwitz (Oswiecim), because that place is regarded by some as exclusively sacred to the memory of the specifically Jewish victims of "the Holocaust." For the sake of the argument, let us as-sume for the moment that a given number of non-Jews were martyred there. Why is their suffering be considered less important than that of whatever Jewish victims there may have been? Why should the non-Jews, also, not be com-memorated there?

3. The English word holocaust is a borrowing from Late Latin holocaustum "a burnt offering," which was borrowed in
its turn from Greek holócauston "something wholly bumt." In addition to these meanings, it has acquired in English the further senses of "complete consumption by fire; complete destruction, esp. of a large number of persons; a great slaughter, a massacre " It is in this last sense that it has come to be used in the phrase the Holocaust, but it has under-gone a further extension not justified by its previous history. Its use now covers a wide range of senses, from referring to the presumed mass-execution of Jews in gas chambers or other installations, to denoting the entire experience of all Jews in Germany and in territories occupied by German troops, from the accession of the National Socialist party to power in l933 until the end of the war in 1945. It is thus possible for a person who even questions any given allegation
conceming concentration-camps or gas-chambers to be accused of denying that Jews underwent an pcrsecution or suf-fering at all. This type of unacknowledged shifting of meaning is known as semantic wrenching, and the taking over of a term for such special use is often called word-shanghaiing or word-kidnapping.

Unscrupulous discussants have, by using these linguistic features, induced naive, unsuspecting hearers and readers to believe in the reality and uniqueness of whatever is called the Holocaust, and have at the same time wrenched its meaning and made its reference vague and imprecise. They have thus eliminated objective discussion and replaced it by obfuscation and confusion. In this way, use of the phrase the Holocaust, without further qualification, prejudges the issue. Here, as in so many other instances of propagandistic "Newspeak," we must be on our guard whenever we hear, read, or use this phrase. We must be fully aware of it various and distorted uses, if we are to realize what is happening linguistically and thus avoid being duped.

[Gogor]

Denial Redux

Charles Glass
The London Desk

Who denies genocide? As a rule, the perpetrators and their apologists. The apologists do two things: first, deny the genocide took place; and, then, excuse it. Their strategy imitates that of defense lawyers, who assure the jury that while their client did not commit murder, he had a good excuse. In the Dec. 13 issue I wrote on this page that the Brit-sh government was appeasing modern Turkey by refusing to acknowledge Ottoman Turkey’s last great crime, the annihilation of half the empire’s Armenian population. The Labor regime joins the ranks of Armenian-holocaust deniers this coming Jan. 27, when it honors all the other victims of the 20th century’s genocides.

Representatives of Britain’s tiny Armenian community, a mere 25,000 souls, complained that the BBC was following the government’s lead by excluding their forebears from all television coverage of Holocaust Memorial Day. The BBC’s response was, in its way, more shocking than the government’s position that the only genocides worth com-memorating were the Nazis’ of Jews and Roma (Gypsies), the Hutus’ of Tutsis in Rwanda and the Serbs’ of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The BBC admitted in a letter to General-Secretary Misak Ohanian of the Center for Armenian Information and Advice that it had surrendered editorial control to the Home Office. "The BBC," wrote producer Gaby Koppel, "have been invited to produce the official event on behalf of the Home Office, who have retained over-all editorial control."

Overall editorial control? The BBC is a state-owned corporation in which, according to its charter, the government is not allowed to interfere. The government puts its placemen in charge: Margaret Thatcher installed as deputy director-general (thus ensuring he would succeed to the top job) the egregious John Birt to sell off many of the BBC’s best as-sets and corporatize the place; and Tony Blair replaced him with Labor Party donor Greg Dyke to make Auntie, as the BBC is known here, more amenable to the New Labor’s vision of whatever the party has a vision of (like winning the next election). After putting their favorites in charge, governments are not expected to take direct control of anything, especially news. Granting the Home Office editorial control over Holocaust remembrance is a bit like CNN turning over its coverage of the Gulf War and Kosovo to the Pentagon. (In a way, CNN did just that. Unlike the British gov-ernment and BBC, however, it never admitted the fact.)

This is the first time Britain has sponsored a Holocaust Memorial Day, and it has chosen the odd date of Jan. 27, anni-versary of the Red Army’s conquest of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp, rather than the day in April 1945 when Britain’s own army liberated Belsen. That the whole enterprise was confused is reflected in Tony Blair’s explanation that it is intended to "celebrate our diversity and build a new patriotism that is open to all." What Nazi Germany’s crimes against humanity-specifically against Jews, Roma, Poles, homosexuals and communists-have to do with British diversity is a question best left to New Labor’s ideologues. The point is that, despite all the confusion surrounding this "celebration" (who celebrates mass murder?), the only victims of genocide during the 20th century who are excluded from the program are the Armenians. I suggested last December that the reason for their exclusion was Britain’s un-willingness to offend Turkey, a major market for British arms and a staging area for Anglo-American bombing runs against sanctions-starved Iraqis. The suggestion appeared to annoy another columnist on these pages, Melik Kaylan, who wrote that I "should know better."

Kaylan writes that for me and Edward Said, although I’m not certain why America’s greatest Palestinian intellectual was dragged into this, "the Turks remain unredeemable, a common sentiment in the West." I have never expressed animosity toward the Turks. While I decry their historic massacres of 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War and their filthy war against their Kurdish citizens for the past quarter century, I love Turkey, its people and its culture. In 1990, I published a book, Tribes with Flags (Atlantic Monthly Press-still in print, so please buy it), that was a long lament for the demise of the Ottoman Empire. To compare the architecture of the great Sinan in Istanbul and Damascus to the pathetic European structures that followed under British, French and independent rule is to see that the Middle East was far better under the Ottomans than subsequently. The borders that Britain and France drew across the landscape of the Middle East have scarred the region ever since. Turkey was a great power, whose greatest stain is the crime it has never admitted: genocide against the Armenians.

It sickens me that people still deny it took place. Their more or less successful denial helps us to understand why Israel and the Jewish Diaspora will not let us forget what happened to Jews during World War II. Since Oct. 29, 1923, when Turkey became a republic, the state has systematically denied the organized massacre of the Armenians. Where mas-sacres are acknowledged, the official version was that rebellious Armenians provoked them. One of the more famous cases was the so-called revolt at Van in eastern Turkey in 1915, when the Russians intervened. What Kaylan does not mention is that American missionaries at Van (America was not at war with Turkey) observed that "The Russians cremated nearly 55,000 slain Armenian corpses they found." The missionary Grace Knapp, who lived through the massacre, wrote, "The fact cannot be too strongly emphasized that there was no [Armenian] rebellion." American mis-sionary files record massacres at Akhisar and the long death marches to the desert, where Armenians were burned alive.

History can be denied. People forget. While a defeated Germany admitted its crimes against the Jews, Turkey did not really lose the war. It lost an empire, but the brilliant leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later called Ataturk, Father of the Turks) saved his country from colonization by the Allied Powers. Ataturk’s struggle to keep the Turks free en-abled him to deny crimes with which he, who had an honorable record during the World War at Gallipoli and in Syria, was not associated. It is time for Turkey to admit what happened and take its place among the free and open societies of the world. Britain and writers in Western newspapers, meanwhile, should stop conniving in the lie.

[Gogor]

DECISION BRIEF
Caspian Watch #13: Strategically Minded Jewish-American Groups May Help Effect Needed U.S. Regional Policy Shift

(Washington, D.C.): In one of the most promising politico-foreign policy developments in recent years, six leading Jewish-American organizations have joined forces in an effort to bring about a more balanced and strategically sound U.S. posture vis a vis two nations in the Caspian region -- Azerbaijan and Armenia. With the formidable political muscle of B'nai Brith, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the American Jewish Congress, there appears to be a distinct possibility that, at long last, a legislated and highly counter-productive tilt toward Armenia at the expense of full, normalized U.S. relations with Azerbaijan may finally come to an end.

The significance of the emergence of a well-connected interest group that rivals -- if not substantially exceeds -- the clout of the Armenian-American lobby is hard to overstate. It may mean that, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a chance of forging a new paradigm in the Transcaucasus and Middle East: a strategic partnership between the United States, Israel and the two, pro-Western secular Muslim governments in these regions -- Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The Washington Post Gets It Right

This immensely promising prospect was trumpeted in a lengthy article that appeared in yesterday's Washington Post. Under the headline, "Jewish-Armenian Split Spreads on the Hill: Strategic Issues Put Onetime Lobbying Allies at Odds," the Post reports that:

"In one of the more unusual realignments among foreign policy lobbies working Capitol Hill, six Jewish American groups decided last summer to take on the influential Armenian Assembly of America to clear Azerbaijan's name in Congress and end sanctions imposed by Congress in 1992 at the urging of Armenian-Americans. Spokesmen for the Jewish-American groups say they are only upholding the strategic interests of Israel, which seeks to forge friendships and alliances with secular Muslim countries bordering its two principal enemies Iran and Iraq." (Emphasis added.)

The reporters, David Ottaway and Daniel Morgan, go on to cite an ironic twist: At a time when Israel is "busy bonding with Turkey and Azerbaijan, Christian Armenia has forged an even more unusual alliance with Islamic fundamentalist Iran. For Israel -- and the U.S. -- Iran is a major security threat; for Armenia it is a friendly neighbor and major trading partner." (Emphasis added.)

An Expanded 'Phantom Alliance'?

On 4 February, New York Times columnist William Safire wrote a riveting article entitled "The Phantom Alliance." In it, this preeminent pundit describes the emerging three-way relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States -- an "untreatied association [that] is good for the three democracies" compelled to contend with what he calls the "strange-bedfellowing" that may be underway between "Iran, Iraq, Syria and its captive, Lebanon, and the emerging Palestinian state." Regarding this "Phantom Alliance," Mr. Safire notes:

"Turkey, Israel and the United States firmly deny its existence. The Turks assure fellow Muslim nations its new military and economic ties to the Israelis don't threaten them. The Americans say the U.S. tilt toward Turkey should be of no concern to Arab monarchs. The Israelis say: Alliance? What alliance? No one of the three is committed to go to war if another is attacked."

If Azerbaijan can be incorporated into this informal -- yet strategically pivotal -- partnership that has emerged over the past year or so between Israel, Turkey and the United States, the stabilizing effect would extend into the Caspian Basin -- a region of potentially immense oil deposits(1) encircled by latently, if not blatantly, anti-Western regimes. Of particular concern is Russia under the leadership of the career KGB operative, Yevgeny Primakov. Russia's ongoing efforts to undermine the governments of Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and neighboring Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze have included attempted assassinations and other forms of violence.(2)

The impetus behind the Kremlin's aggressive behavior is not hard to divine: Moscow fears the economic consequences of losing its traditional stranglehold on the Caspian, especially in light of Russia's projected national budget revenues of just $21 billion for 1999. As Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) related in a 10 February 1998 speech on the Senate floor: "Russia has long raged and conspired to thwart Caspian energy from flowing any direction but north through Russia. Most parts of Russia's political elite still view Caspian wealth as their own."

The Bottom Line

U.S. interests clearly lie with promoting and expanding "the Phantom Alliance" so as to provide as robust as possible a pro-Western counterweight to the Russian, Iranian, Armenian and other agendas. The efforts being made by the six Jewish-American organizations and other like-minded groups to repeal U.S. legislation that is highly discriminatory against Azerbaijan -- specifically Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992 -- are to be applauded and encouraged. Such a step can only help improve the prospects for democratic and free market reform in Azerbaijan and for stability in the wider and increasingly vital Caspian region.

[Gogor]

AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE VOWS TO CONTINUE ITS EFFORTS
TO END U.S. SANCTIONS ON AZERBAIJAN

Washington, DC. Ambassador (Ret.) Peter Rosenblatt of the American Jewish Committee has stated that the AJC hopes for success next year in lifting the "discriminatory U.S. legislation against Azerbaijan". Amb. Rosenblatt made his remarks recently at a welcoming dinner for Azerbaijan Jewish leaders.
Amb. Rosenblatt recognized the "remarkably close friendship Azerbaijan has already established with Israel" and expressed the hope that, in the future, bonds will be strengthened among American Jews, the country of Azerbaijan and the Azeri Jewish community.

Amb. Rosenblatt expressed pleasure that "Azeri Jews, for so long isolated, are finally able to reestablish contact with their brethren abroad." He said that it was unfortunate that "the birth of Azerbaijan, like that of so many other modern nations, has been accomplished in the midst of a bloodbath".

Amb. Rosenblatt remarked that the American Jewish community takes great interest in efforts to bring peace to Azerbaijan and Armenia, "neighbors whose security and prosperity are, and will always be, linked by geography and history." The dinner was hosted by the America Azerbaijan Partnership Foundation in honor of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, First Vice President of the Azerbaijan state oil company, SOCAR. It took place in the State Room of Washington's Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. Attending were Aliyev and several leaders of Azerbaijani Jewish organizations, including the chairmen of the Council of Religious Communities of Mountain Jews of Baku, the Community of Ashkenazi Jews, the Community of Georgian Jews, the Krasnaya Sloboda Jewish Community, and the president of the Jewish Association of Azerbaijan.

[Gogor]

Israel in high-level bid for Azerbaijan projects By Steve Rodan JDW Correspondent (NOTE : Jewish Domination over so-called Secular-Islamic States)

Jane's Defence Weekly

The agreement to allow defence contractors to bid for projects in Azerbaijan was struck during a visit by Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh to Baku late last month. Officials told Jane's Defence Weekly that in the first stage Israeli contractors would be allowed to bid on security contracts. Sneh, who has visited Baku three times in the past six months, said he did not discuss plans to sell Israeli weapons to Azerbaijan. However, defence sources told JDW that contractors are assessing Azerbaijan's defence needs. They said Baku requires advanced technology as part of its dispute with neighbouring Armenia. Sneh told JDW: "I obtained an agreement for Israeli companies to bid for projects connected to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Azerbaijan will become one of the most important centres in the world and we have excellent relations with them." Magal Security Systems has won a contract of unspecified value to construct a security fence and related detection systems at Baku international airport. Defence sources said Magal is one of several Israeli companies that are seeking contracts to secure the 2,000km pipeline. "We're talking about a huge contract that will turn Israel into a major player in Azerbaijan," a defence source told JDW of the pipeline project. Officials said Prime Minister Ehud Barak has intensified efforts to upgrade defence relations with Azerbaijan. The co-operation includes the fields of intelligence exchanges and training. A key reason for Israel's interest, they said, is that Azerbaijan neighbours Iran, which is pursuing missile development and nuclear weapons that the Islamic regime could use to threaten Israel. - Steve Rodan JDW Corre-spondent Israel and Azerbaijan are forging new ties that will allow Israeli defence contractors to bid on projects in the former Soviet Republic and build on security contracts already won.

[Gogor]

Letter to Bush Written in Support of Turkey


Twenty-five members of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress have written a letter to President George Bush and urged him to support Turkey to overcome its economic troubles.

The letter said Turkey which has been a friend and a key ally to the United States for many years is trying to implement its reform program with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and its economic importance keeps growing for the United States. The congressmen stated that they believed the United States should back Turkey's efforts to pull itself out of the economic chaos and express its support.

Democratic party member Tom Lantos and Republican Dan Burton, who had took sides with Ankara when the U.S. Congress debated the so-called Armenian genocide last year, are the the first ones who signed the letter. After considering Turkey's key role in the Middle East and assessing the possible negative consequences of resolution on Turkish-U.S. relations, the U.S. Congress had later withdrawn the resolution which proposed the official recognition of the so-called genocide allegedly committed by Turks against Armenians in 1915.

The parliamentarians also pointed out that Bush's phone call to Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and the message released by Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill were positive indications.

[TomServo]

This was supposed to have stopped.