Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

[Haykakan]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Haaretz article urges Turkey to acknowledge Armenian Genocide

13:49 - 16.10.11



Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, in a piece posted on the leading Israeli newspaper
Haaretz Web site on Friday, says that Turkey should acknowledge the
Armenian Genocide.

`Turkey continues to practice state-sanctioned genocide denial and
prosecutes those who dare challenge it. Isn't it time, 90-something
years after the Ottoman Empire eliminated as many as 1.5 million
Armenians that Mr. Erdogan's `mildly Islamist' party, as The Economist
leniently defines it, acknowledges Turkey's dark past and apologizes
on behalf of its country's crimes?' asks Ottolenghi.

`Not to belabor the point, but the list of things Turkey should
apologize for is long. It continues to illegally occupy Northern
Cyprus, the territory of a European Union member, after having
conquered the land through an act of aggression that ended in ethnic
cleansing and illegal settlements,' wrote he.

`No apology there so far - in fact, Turkey has just threatened to
freeze ties with the EU if Cyprus receives the Union's rotating
presidency next year, as it is supposed to. Meanwhile, Mr. Erdogan is
directing his gunboat diplomacy threats at Cyprus as well - as if
occupation, ethnic cleansing and the creation of a fictitiously
independent republic in the northern part of the island were not
enough,' adds Ottolenghi.

`Moral of the story: If you behave like a bull, you should not live in
a china shop. And if you live in a glass house, think twice before you
throw stones at your neighbors. Mr. Erdogan wants an apology? How
about starting with one?' concludes the author.


Tert.am

[Hayayrun]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

I hate that the Genocide issue has become now purely political. Its become an anti-Turkish tool, of course at least publicity is spread...

I hate it too, that it become political, but it is a good news, that our Genocide issue moves toward recognizing.

[Mos]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

I hate that the Genocide issue has become now purely political. Its become an anti-Turkish tool, of course at least publicity is spread...

Turkish press discusses Israel’s possible recognition of Armenian Genocide





September 06, 2011 | 13:51
Turkey’s attitude towards Israel provoked certain steps in the parliament regarding recognition of the Armenian Genocide, writes Turkish Haberturk newspaper.

The newspaper recalls words of Israeli MP Arie Eldad who said Turkey will get a response for deporting Israeli diplomats.

Once the parliamentary hearings start, the Armenian Genocide bill will be included in the agenda, Eldad said.

Information has been recently spread by almost all media outlets which claim the Armenian Diaspora hopes that Israel will recognize the Armenian Genocide in response to Turkey’s attitude.

[londontsi]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Dear Users,

I have in fact huge trouble to understand, why a nation, who shares the same even more worse "destiny" like we armenians, have still graet problems to recognize the armenian genocide.

Please can one of you explain me, why the juwXXX policy is so dishonest and spoilt.

Before we try to understand another nation we need to understand ourselves.

Can we explain why Armenians even dream, hope and get excited such a thing will happen
considering the level of friendship and cooperation that exists with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The number of time they used the Armenian Genocide as a political weapon, a tool to their advantage.
Any nation with dignity would have stood back and said, would I trust these guy and go through that again.
Certainly an ignorant (տգետ) layer of our nation consistently live in that dream and hope.
To even think that after all these machinations they “do recognise”, the cynics would ask .... why now? And is that a political gain.

The weapons Israel sells to Azerbaijan ( and Turkey) some of the most modern to do what, to kill who? ..... Armenians.
Yet we as a little lapdogs get all excited and pontificate about morality, similarity with them and any other bollocks that we can take hold of.

[Hayayrun]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Dear Users,

I have in fact huge trouble to understand, why a nation, who shares the same even more worse "destiny" like we armenians, have still graet problems to recognize the armenian genocide.

Please can one of you explain me, why the juwXXX policy is so dishonest and spoilt.

[Mos]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

.....

So, MPs are less likely to adopt a resolution recognizing “genocide” after it is raised in the parliament itself?

Our national football team would rather reach the World Cup. I am quoting Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon: "There is no chance that the Knesset will recognize the “Armenian genocide.” It is impossible. We can not spoil relations with Azerbaijan, our major strategic partners in the Muslim world, because of controversial historical issues relating to the events that took place a century ago. Danny Ayalon is member of the party “Israel Our Home” headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Head of the Knesset committee on education, culture and sport Alex Miller is also a member of this party. Over recent years, MPs and ministers from “Israel Our Home” have traditionally been the staunchest supporters of partnership with Azerbaijan. They consistently oppose the recognition of Armenian "genocide". Since 2008, when the Knesset commission voted for consideration of the "Armenian question" for the first time, “Israel Our Home” annually torpedoed further decisions on this issue.

[gegev]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Going to be tough - with the foreign minister and defence officials not wanting to anger azerbaijan. Though closer than ever, I see this as being killed at the last moment.

Right this is just a farce.

[Mos]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Going to be tough - with the foreign minister and defence officials not wanting to anger azerbaijan. Though closer than ever, I see this as being killed at the last moment.

TEL AVIV // A plan by Israel's parliamentary speaker to move the country closer to recognising the 1915 killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide worries foreign ministry officials because it threatens to worsen ties with Turkey.

The decision by Reuven Rivlin, a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, is a break with the years-long Israeli policy to take no stance on the massacre.

On Monday, Mr Rivlin said that the 120-member parliament will begin holding an annual session to mark the massacre.

"It's my duty as a xxx and an Israeli to recognise the tragedies of other nations," said Mr Rivlin, in an indirect reference to the Holocaust. "Diplomatic considerations, as considerable as they are, will not allow us to deny the catastrophe of others."

Israel, like the US, has never acknowledged that the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks was genocide, saying that the historical dispute should be settled between Turkey and Armenia. Its long-held view, however, is widely attributed to its desire to maintain good relations with Turkey, which has vehemently denied that genocide had taken place.

The Israeli stance has been supported for years by pro-Israel xxxish organisations in the US, which have pressured the US Congress and successive presidents to defeat congressional resolutions marking the killing of the Armenians. Turkey is a key ally that has supported the US in confrontations from Afghanistan to Iran.

Mr Rivlin's move to conduct an event that would publicly question Turkey's denial is probably a result of the deteriorating ties between Israel and Turkey.


The allies' relations have suffered amid Turkey's growing condemnation of the xxxish state's approach towards the Palestinians and after Israeli commandos' killing of nine Turkish activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla last year.

Yossi Sarid, a former education minister, said the parliament's approval of Mr Rivlin's initiative was due to Israel's anger at Turkey's support of an upcoming international aid flotilla that aims to break Israel's blockade of Gaza's airspace, territorial waters and all but one of its border crossings.

"The Israelis no longer favour the Turks and are willing to give up the charms and temptations of Antalya," he wrote in the Haaretz newspaper yesterday, referring to the Turkish resort city that in the past was a major tourism destination for Israelis.

Mr Rivlin's announcement has also stirred speculation in the Israeli and Turkish press that Israel intended to pressure Turkey to stop the Gaza-bound flotilla expected as soon as this month.

On Monday, a coalition of 22 activist groups aiming to take part in the new flotilla said at a news conference aboard the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, the ship on which last year's confrontation took place, that 15 ships would be in the new convoy.

Their briefing came a day after Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, warned Israel against launching another raid of the aid flotilla. "We are sending a clear message to all those concerned: the same tragedy should not be repeated again," he told the Reuters news agency.

Muslim Turkey accepts that as many as 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman forces but denies the act amounted to genocide, a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.

The Israeli government has expressed opposition to Mr Rivlin's initiative, with Danny Ayalon, deputy foreign minister and a member of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, saying this week it was "impossible" for Israel to officially recognise the genocide.

Mr Rivlin's announcement comes after the parliament's vote last week to hold an open, public debate on the Armenians' massacre.

[Alexandros]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

Yes Mos, thanks for posting.

[Mos]

Re: Knesset moves toward recognizing Armenian genocide

interesting article...

The Armenians, the xxxs and Israel
By SUSAN HATTIS ROLEF
05/25/2011 23:10

Until recently, Israel chose to ignore the genocide in the Ottoman empire.

In 1915-16, during World War I, the Turks were responsible for the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. Among the first to warn about the nature and scope of the atrocity was Aaron Aaronsohn – the renowned agronomist from Zichron Ya’acov who established the Nili spy ring, which in the course of the war collected information about Ottoman military movements and other strategic issues and passed it on to the British authorities.

Several of Aaronsohn’s relatives and colleagues actually witnessed the bloody manifestations of the massacre. In November 1916, Aaronsohn sent the British authorities a memorandum entitled “Pro Armenia,” in which he described the atrocities.

The previous month, he had sent a long letter to Judge Julian Mack – a leading American Zionist – in which he tried to convince him to adopt a pro-British position, inter alia describing the massacre of the Armenians and claiming that the Ottoman policy against both the Armenians and the xxxs (who he feared might suffer a similar plight) had “made in Germany” written all over it. The Ottoman Empire, it may be recalled, was an ally of Germany in the war, and at the time Aaronsohn was writing, many xxxs held pro-German or neutral positions. The xxxish yishuv in Palestine, the Zionist Organization and the State of Israel since 1948 could not claim ignorance of what happened to the Armenians.


And yet until recently, Israel has chosen to ignore the event, with numerous excuses, each of which is shameful in its own right.

The first is that since Turkey denies that a systematic massacre of Armenians ever took place, as well as minimizing the numbers involved (a number that justifies the term genocide), and since for years Israel regarded Turkey as a strategic ally – one of the few Muslim states it could regard as such – Israel would do well not to “let sleeping dogs lie.”

The fact that other states, including the US, adopted a similar policy seemed to justify Israel’s position.

The second excuse was that referring to the massacre of the Armenians as genocide might belittle the enormity of the Holocaust – an Israeli attitude that applies to other cases of genocide as well (and is, in my opinion, not just unjustified, but disgraceful). The xxxish Holocaust – in terms of both its circumstances and its manifestations – is without doubt unique. Nevertheless, this does not justify our belittling or ignoring the horrors that have occurred to other peoples.

The third excuse is that since we do not like others criticizing our treatment of the Palestinians, we should avoid criticizing other states for the way they treat their minorities. This excuse is simply foolish, and may easily boomerang, because no matter how problematic our record of treating our Arab citizens (and the Palestinians in general) might be, it bears no resemblance to the sorts of acts we are talking about. On the contrary, given the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, our record – though certainly not free of blemish – cannot be described as involving massacres or acts of genocide at all, as some, including the Turks, can. The Turks are the first who should be confronted with the difference, and it is a shame that only now, when Israel’s relations with Turkey have deteriorated to unprecedented levels due to unbridled Turkish attacks, Israel has finally decided to have its public say on the Armenian genocide.

For years, various MKs from Meretz have tried to get the Knesset to hold a public debate on the subject. Until last week, the only sort of debate to which the Foreign Ministry, speaking in the name of the government, would consent was one in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose proceedings are confidential and whose minutes are not published.

On May 18, the plenum finally decided, following a motion brought forth by MK Zehava Gal-On, to hold an open debate on the subject in the Education, Culture and Sports Committee – the proceedings of which are public, with full minutes published on the Knesset website.

No one opposed the subject’s being referred to the committee, and all the speakers, from Right and Left, religious and secular, spoke in its favor. All one can say is: “better late than never,” but what a shame it took so long.

The writer is a former Knesset employee.