Israel does not want Kurdish state in Iraq, Israeli envoy in Turkey says

[Hovik]

Israel does not want Kurdish state in Iraq, Israeli envoy in Turkey says

Hurriyet website, Istanbul
19 Aug 05

Excerpt from report by Ipek Arioglu and Selcuk Senyuz: "We do not
want a Kurdish state" published by Turkish daily Hurriyet website on
19 August

Stating that they would act jointly with Turkey in northern Iraq,
Israel's Ambassador Pinhas Avivi said: "If a Kurdish state is formed
in the north then a Shi'i state would be formed in the centre of Iraq,
and that we are opposed to." Avivi also said that securing economic
support from Turkey in the Gaza Strip was important.

Stating they were definitely opposed to the formation of a Kurdish
state in northern Iraq, Israel's Ambassador Pinhas Avivi said:
"I promise that nothing we are not coordinating with Turkey will
happen in the region. Israel will conduct all its activities in the
region by acting jointly with Turkey."

Talking to Hurriyet Avivi gave the message that Israel would do nothing
in northern Iraq that went against Turkey's interests. Avivi also
said allegations that Israel was backing the Kurds in the northern
Iraq were completely baseless, and that they had been fabricated by
the Iranian embassy.

We are opposed to Kurdish state

He continued: "I guarantee you that Israel is not acting against
Turkey's interests in northern Iraq. If a Kurdish state is formed
in northen Iraq then a Shi'i state would be formed in central Iraq,
and that we are opposed to. Both Turkey and Israel are elements of
the region, and we both want stability. We want Iraq to be a unified,
Western and democratic country. Any development to the contrary would
affect both Turkey and Israel adversely."

Turkish support for Gaza

"Israel's evacuation of the Jewish settlements in Gaza is a positive
decision. It is important for ensuring that the economic gulf between
the two people's living on that land is closed and for bringing about
peace. If the withdrawal from Gaza is a success and I Turkey and the
other regional countries provide economic support to the area and
terrorist activities come to a halt then peace is possible. Failing
that peace is not possible. We welcome Turkey's promise of support
with the aim of contributing to the peace process. In this context
the Ankara Forum, which aims to bring together Israeli, Palestinian
and Turkish businessmen at the Turkish government's initiative is
important."

Armenian problem

"It is wrong to look for similarities between the so-called Armenian
genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. The Holocaust was a political
decision made with the aim of wiping a nation of the face of the
earth. I have great respect for the decision made by the Turkish
government and the Turkish people regarding the Armenian problem. We
believe that the matter should be debated by historians and not
politicians in order to expose the truth. Turkey has opened its
archives, and this is very important."

Serving Turkey

"Israel supports Turkey's EU bid. When my European friends ask,
"What will become of Europe when Turkey and its 70-million population
joins?" I ask them, "You should consider what might happen to the
world if Turkey remains outside the EU." In every place where there
is an Israeli Embassy there are two embassies supporting Turkey's EU
bid: the Turkish embassy and the Israeli embassy."

[Passage omitted].

[Gavur]

Peres Denies There Was An Armenian 'Genocide'

Peres Denies There Was
An Armenian 'Genocide'
3-11-2


It all began last year when Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres visited Ankara and announced that "We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. What the Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide."

Armenians were outraged and protests this assertive stance by the top diplomat of a nation whose sons and daughters themselves lived through the Holocaust.

Peres' sentiments were reiterated last month by Israel's ambassador to Armenia and Georgia Rivka Cohen, who during a press conference in Yerevan said the Genocide could not be compared with the Holocaust. This resulted in further public outrage and a diplomatic row between Armenia and Israel, especially after the former lodged a formal complaint to the Israeli foreign ministry.

In response to the Armenian note, Israel not only validated Cohen's remarks, but went on to suggest that the veracity of the Genocide be confirmed through academic studies and historic research.

Amid this new phase in the denial of the Armenian Genocide, two noted Israeli scholars have sharply criticized their government for its posturing on the Genocide.

"As a Jew and Israeli, I am deeply ashamed of the position taken by our Ambassador and Ministry to deny that the genocide of the Armenian people in 1915 was in fact genocide," said Israel Charny, Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Executive Director, Institute on the Holocaust & Genocide, Jerusalem in a letter sent to the Israeli foreign minister, Cohen and other top officials.

This letter was followed by a critically-worded article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz was published authored by Dr. Yair Auron a scholar of genocide and author of the book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide.

"The fact that politicians, the media and academia disregard such a significant event only demonstrates the depth of our moral bankruptcy. As an Israeli Jew, I can only ask the forgiveness of every member of the Armenian people and assure them that there are people in Israel who will not give up until their State changes its immoral and anti-historical attitude toward the genocide suffered by another people," Auron wrote in his article.

Both articles point to a paradox within Israeli society and further illustrate that a position expressed by a government cannot automatically become the stance of the people living in that country. It also illustrates that the Israeli government, despite overtures made in the past, is unwilling to understand that the international silence on the Genocide at the time, paved the way for Adolf Hitler to freely plan the extermination of the Jews in Europe.

In April 2000, Israel's Education Minister Yosi Sarid discussed the Armenian Genocide during a speech and pledged that the subject would be taught in Israeli public schools. This was enough for the Ehud Barak administration to quickly counter Sarid and say that the minister had not expressed the position of the Israeli government.

Israel's political motivations and its decades-long partnership and alliance with Turkey demonstrates that the leadership of the Jewish state is not keen to end man's inhumanity to man and by asserting that the Genocide cannot be compared the Holocaust, the same leadership is signaling that it has cornered the market so to speak, on being a victim of a planned and perpetrated mass extermination campaign.

The Genocide or the Holocaust are not competitive events nor can one tragedy diminish the another. The Israeli government should feel the same shame that has been expressed by its own prominent scholars and immediately rectify its complicity in the Genocide denial campaign.

Both Charny and Auron, must be comended for their principled stance on this matter. Let us hope that their efforts will serve as examples for other academics and the Israeli public to demonstrate the same sentiments and advocate for justice. As for the Israeli government, "shame on them" is an understated condemnation of their posturing.

http://www.asbarez.com/frontpage.htm

[imported_bezjian]

Once again, who is on the forefront of Genocide denial? It's not turks, it's jews.

there is a lesson in the edmonds/hastert affair that i hope everyone sees. when gentiles deny the genocide it is because they've been paid off (hastert, burton, livingston, etc.). when the "chosen" do it (lantos, lewis, itzkowitz, etc.) it is out of the kindness of their own heart!

[imported_bezjian]

i agree with avivi and the other posters here. it is wrong to try to equate the armenian genocide with the jewish shoah. they're totally different. with the shoah, jews were killed in an area of europe where they lived in large numbers. where the german army could not reach, jews were not threatened. and while they were being killed in germany, poland, etc., jews living in north africa, the levant, yemen, iraq, iran, and turkey, continued living in the centuries-old judeo-islamic societies that had helped to preserve the jewish semitic culture and religion throughout their 2000-year condition of exile.

in the case of the armenian genocide, armenians were savagely murdered without the benefit of modern technology in their own ancestral homeland by the descendents of nomadic invaders who arrived approx. 900 years earlier from central asia, with the help of kurds and even jews themselves. the armenians were not spread out in dozens of countries around the world, probably 90% of the world armenian population was centered in the towns and villages of central and eastern ottoman turkey, as well as its metropolitan centers such as istanbul and izmir.

today, israel is a country that is militarily stronger than the sum of its (self-created) enemies combined and has reaped enormous benfits from the generous reparations scheme imposed on and agreed to by the succesor german government to the nazi regime. the jewish nation state exists because of the jewish shoah. armenia on the other hand is a country that exists in spite of the armenian genocide, as it could have very well been overrun by kemal's army in 1920. it is sandwiched between and economically blockaded by the successor governments to the turkish regime responsible for the genocide, who not only have never indemnified the victim nation for their predecessor's crimes but also deny that an act of race murder occurred, and even distort the history of anatolia by excluding armenians from the public consciousness and destroying the vestiges of their uninterrupted millenia-old presence on that land.

pinhas avivi, i'm glad you are starting to see the truth.

[imported_anoush]

My Killings Are Much Bigger Than Yours…

ANKARA--Israel’s Ambassador to Turkey seems to have rediscovered the measuring stick yet again, saying that it is inappropriate to link the Holocaust of the Jews and the Armenian genocide.

Turkish Daily News quoted Ambassador Pinhas Avivi as saying in an exclusive interview to Hurriyet, “It is wrong to draw similarities between the Armenian genocide and Jewish genocide. The Holocaust was a political decision to eradicate an entire people from the earth. I really respect the decision of the Turkish Government and Turks to leave the issue to the historians. Not the politicians but the historians should discuss the matter. Turkey opened its archives and this is vital.”

He also gave assurances that Israel was not acting against Turkey's interests in northern Iraq. “If a Kurdish state is established in the North, a Shia state is also established in the middle, and we do not want to see that. We want a democratic and united Iraq” he added.

Asbarez
August 23. 2005