Who, After All, Speaks Today of the Annihilation of the Armenians

It seems that apologetics for killing Armenians is more popular in hawkish "pro-Israel" circles than I'd realized. American Enterprise Institute scholar and contributor to various publications MIchael Rubin condemnts Abe Foxman here for changing his view to the genocide happened position. He also links to a couple of articles published in The Middle East Quarterly which he edits that deny the genocide. MEQ, in turn, is produced by Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum.

It bares mentioning that no less a figure than Adolf Hitler himself cited Turkey's success at evading accountability for what happened to the Armenians as part of his case that liquidation of European Jewry was feasible. Now, I doubt there's an actual causal link here (Hitler would have been Hitler either way) but it sure is an unseemly business. As I say, I don't begrudge the actual Israeli government its right to engage in some realpolitik here, but there's no reason for Jewish civil society groups to be going down this path.

Comments

It bears mentioning . . .

Posted by Joel | August 22, 2007 3:42 PM

I don't understand the impulse here at all. I mean, Jesus. What is the motivation?

Posted by Freddie | August 22, 2007 3:55 PM

Let's cut through the crap.

As I've shown in earlier posts, Israel has an enormous amount at stake in maintaining good relations with Turkey: badly needed oil, water, and a military alliance. An Israeli Minister has stated that Turkey is one of the most important nations in the world to Israel.

The Turks also know that AIPAC is routinely cited as the second most powerful lobby in Washington. And That's only part of the Israel Lobby.

If the Congressional Resolution condemning the Turks for the Armenian genocide passes, then the Turks know that it will open the way for massive reparations lawsuits -- similar to the Holocaust Reparations suits that have been hitting Germany for decades. And the Turks will know exactly who to blame if that happens.

On the other hand, Armenians have moral right on their side. Failure to support them will make much of the clamor about the Holocaust appear hypocritical --even if the real constraint is modern day realpolitik.

I don't know what the solution is. It's a real mess. Except that a clearsighted view of what's at stake is the first step. I don't particularly like Abe Foxman but in this instance he has my sympathy.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 4:00 PM

PS
If the US ever pulls back from the Middle East -- dry up of oil, huge burden of baby boomer retirement requires cuts in defense budget,etc. -- then Turkey is the only strategic friend Israel has in a hostile neighborhood.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 4:05 PM

I don't begrudge the actual Israeli government its right to engage in some realpolitik here, but there's no reason for Jewish civil society groups to be going down this path.

It seems every election there is some segment of the Jewish community that bugs the rest of us urging us to vote for candidates they deem to be "good for Israel" and "good for us Jews [as they are 'good for Israel']".

Perhaps it's time for us to ask "is Israel good for us Jews?"

Posted by DAS | August 22, 2007 4:09 PM

And the Turks will know exactly who to blame if that happens.

The Protestants?

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 4:10 PM

Very smart post Matt. Hopefully the weight of history can be a force for reason against those voices in Israel that legitimize genocidal policies. It's unfortunate that the notion that Israel should stand in solidarity with other victims of genocide is largely a fantasy as the citizens of Israel become ever less secular and more fanatic.

Posted by Scott Kern | August 22, 2007 4:11 PM

"Bares" mentioning?

When will some genial slacker provide us a list of Yglesiasisms?

Posted by Anderson | August 22, 2007 4:14 PM

Re "as citizens of Israel become ever less secular and more fanatic."
-------
I'm not sure that's fair. The Israeli left, Haaretz ,etc seem far more humane than our homegrown American Neocons. Or Christian Zionists.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 4:14 PM

Don Williams is right about why Israel is taking the position it is taking. The question, though, is why Jewish organizations here are taking the positions they are taking. And why we Jews are constantly being pressured to take the Israeli position or be considered bad Jews.

If Zionism is illegitimate, then why have the state of Israel (e.g. remain as a Jewish-dominated state) anyway and why should we Jews support that state (rather than just trying to figure out the best way to ensure that the Jews in Israel remain safe and all us Jews have access to Jewish holy sites)?

OTOH, given the ideology of Zionism -- that we Jews should be no different than any other grouping, e.g., we should have a state of our own -- why should we Jews have to take the Israeli side of things against our interests as Jews (i.e. supporting the continued denial of a genocide, which denial gave Hitler hope that his genocidal ideas would remain uncentured)? Why should Jews and Jewish organizations have any more loyalty to Israel than do people of English origin and the Episcopalean Church have to Great Britain?

To say that there is a difference and to demand a special loyalty of us Jews to the state of Israel, not only violates Emil Fackenheim's 614th commandment by giving Hitler the posthumous victory of validating anti-Semitic claims of dual loyalty, but also undermines the very foundational ideology of Israel.

And these people who urge the rest of us Jews to be more supportive of Israel are people who claim to be concerned about anti-Semitism and pro-Zionist? Seems to me they've internalized too many anti-Semitic tropes and are themselves anti-Zionist even as they try to cover it up by supporting the most radical elements of the Israeli body politic (to the point where a moderate/liberal in Israel would be perceived as anti-Zionist by many in the American Jewish community), which are tied to those who only want to undermine Israel's long term survival anyway for their own millenialist goals? WTF? Something is seriously wrong with these people ... but alas, they are the ones who claim to speak for us Jews?

I swear the next time I hear any Jewish person going on about African-Americans letting Al Sharpton speak for them ...

Posted by DAS | August 22, 2007 4:22 PM

If the Congressional Resolution condemning the Turks for the Armenian genocide passes, then the Turks know that it will open the way for massive reparations lawsuits -- similar to the Holocaust Reparations suits that have been hitting Germany for decades.

I don't understand that at all. The genocide happened. If I wanted to file a reparations lawsuit, I'd have already done it. What would I be waiting for, Congress to acknowledge a fact that everyone already knows?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't imagine any court saying "Sorry, there was no genocide unless Congress passes a resolution saying there was."

Posted by Steve | August 22, 2007 4:29 PM

Having never had the benefit of an Ivy League education, I have a plebian fondness for hard quantitative data over air handwaving.

The Pentagon wargamer, James Dunnigan, listed rough estimates of world military power in his 2003 "How to Make War". Here's an illustration of the mutual value of Turkey's alliance with Israel:

Land Combat Power:
Israel: 617
Iran: 204
Egypt: 149
Syria: 85
Iraq: 84 (pre-invasion?)
Saudi Arabia: 82
Turkey: 240

Naval Power:
Israel: 1
Iran: 1
Egypt: 2
Turkey: 7

GDP: ($Bil)
Israel 48
Turkey 220
Egypt 93
Iran 100
Iraq 20
Syria 14

Population(Mil):

Israel 6.4
Turkey 68.0
Egypt 71.0
Iran 69.0
Iraq 22.0
Syria 16.0

Plus what's not noted is that much of Israel's power depends heavily upon USA financial and military support (F16 spares etc) vice size of population.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 4:33 PM

to paraphrase Rev. Neimoler (spelling?)...................

First they deny the Armenian Genocide.

No matter, I am not an Armenian.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 22, 2007 4:35 PM

I'm fearful of starting a flame war here, especially as a similar discussion led to an all-out feud on my grad school's listserv a few years ago, but here goes...

There exists a legitimate argument which states that the "Armenian genocide" was not, in fact, a genocide. It was a massacre, but might not rise to the legal threshold of genocide. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes it as, "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such..."

As I understand it, the key phrase is "as such." At the time that Armenians were being persecuted in the Eastern Anatolia region of the Ottomon Emipre, Armenians in other parts of the Empire were left in peace, which could suggest that the persecution of the Eastern Anatolian Armenians was solely motivated by ethnic considerations.

Rather, it could have been motivated by a combination of ethnic and religious considerations, with the political issues being the fact that the Armenians of that region sided with the Russians during World War I and their having actively sought independence from the Ottomons.

Of course, massacring a group of individuals because they don't feel like being part of your empire anymore is not nice (see Yugoslavia, 1990s), but it does not necessarily mean that a "genocide" occured. It means that a bloody war of secession was fought and the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia were slaughtered for their desire to be independent and their fealty to the Slavs.

This may be semantics, but I'm a big believer in definitions. We have a generally recognized legal definition of genocide in place. If what happened to the Armenians in the early part of the 20th century doesn't fit within that defninition, then we shouldn't be using the word.

Posted by &chik | August 22, 2007 4:38 PM

DAS,

And why we Jews are constantly being pressured to take the Israeli position or be considered bad Jews.

I'm curious - is this really happening to you with respect to the issue of the Armenian genocide?

Here's the head of the American Jewish Committee - far more influential than Abe Foxman - arguing, amongst other things:

Meanwhile, as the issue once again heats up in the United States, it’s important to be clear. In a book entitled Holocaust Denial, published by the American Jewish Committee in 1993, the author, Kenneth Stern, an AJC staff expert on the subject, noted: “That the Armenian genocide is now considered a topic for debate, or as something to be discounted as old history, does not bode well for those who would oppose Holocaust denial.”

He was right.

http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.2818295/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id=%7B54BEE0BD-BF96-48F2-9EA6-38C876AAEDA2%7D¬oc=1

I think Foxman and Michael Rubin are clearly in the minority position - thankfully, despite having large megaphones.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 4:49 PM

Killing a huge number of people is equally bad whether it fits a legal definition of genocide or not. If some dictator randomly killed 1 million people, not based on ethnicity, but just to watch them die, that'd be just as bad as having some crackpot theory to "justify" it.

In this case, killing over a million people because they tried to withdraw from your empire is as bad as killing them because they're Armenians, IMO.

Maybe it was a bad idea to coin the term "genocide", if it leads to this sort of semantical argument about whether some horrific slaughter qualifies, with the clear implication (intended or not) that it doesn't matter so much if it doesn't.

Posted by Donald Johnson | August 22, 2007 4:50 PM

I would like to see someone address Harvey Silverglate's more nuanced (more sophisticated?) post:

http://thephoenix.com/TheFreeForAll/PermaLink,guid,81db9893-bb68-43b7-9518-ef261fe0bef4.aspx
The Free For All - Genocide and its Partisans: What the ADL Did Wrong

Posted by jerry | August 22, 2007 5:08 PM

When do we get to talk about the Great Hunger and the British?

Posted by An Gorta Mór | August 22, 2007 5:30 PM

no less a figure than Adolf Hitler himself cited Turkey's success at evading accountability for what happened to the Armenians as part of his case that liquidation of European Jewry was feasible.

Apparently, you forgot Poland. Not that it changes the main point.

Posted by Matt Weiner | August 22, 2007 5:32 PM

I'm curious - is this really happening to you with respect to the issue of the Armenian genocide? - SoCalJustice

Thankfully, in terms of pressure on us work-a-day Jews, no ... not yet anyway. But a few influentially Jewish organizations (even if maybe not the most influential ones) have taken the "Israeli" side.

But I was speaking in general ... that you often do see us Jews pressured by people with their own agenda (which both they as well as anti-Zionist types conflate with that of Israel) to support the "Israeli" side even to the exclusion of those positions which Judaism would otherwise induce us to support -- the argument is that if we don't take the "Israeli" side we are being bad Jews.

And in this case, we have a situation where the "Israeli" side is rather obviously a position that we Jews ought not to take. If the self-appointed gatekeepers of "which position is good for the Jews" decide to make an issue of this on behalf of Israel's own real-politic concerns, that would really serve as a wonderful textbook example, though, wouldn't it?

Posted by DAS | August 22, 2007 5:45 PM

It bares mentioning that no less a figure than Adolf Hitler himself cited Turkey's success at evading accountability for what happened to the Armenians as part of his case that liquidation of European Jewry was feasible.

Why does this remind me of Cheney saying that the Reagan showed that deficits don't matter?

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | August 22, 2007 5:46 PM

And in this case, we have a situation where the "Israeli" side is rather obviously a position that we Jews ought not to take.

I guess it what people mean by "Israeli" - and the way you (and others) using it here specifically - on this particular topic, is what's interesting to me.

No doubt many Jewish organizations - including the AJC - often conflate "Jewish" with "Israel" - and while it's weird to see it happen in this context, it has become a controversy precisely because it is the minority (and dumb) position.

And you can see this in real time.

If you go to Jerusalem, for example, and go to the Armenian quarter of the Old City, there are posters about the genocide all over the place. Can't miss them, in fact. And you don't see the IDF or police ripping them down to appease the Turks.

If the self-appointed gatekeepers of "which position is good for the Jews" decide to make an issue of this on behalf of Israel's own real-politic concerns, that would really serve as a wonderful textbook example, though, wouldn't it?

Foxman did - and got smacked about by his own organization (which is rare, and nice), and was forced to do a 180.

The largest American Jewish organization - "pro-Israel" in its own right - took the position that the Armenian genocide was in fact a genocide, from the beginning, regardless of what a minority of people who think of themselves as "pro-Israel" say to the contrary.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 5:55 PM

Don Williams:

I doubt any Armenian realistically expects reparations from Turkey. For one thing, Germany's individual reparations have only gone to the actual survivors of the Holocaust, or their widows. None go to children, grandchildren, etc. Are there any survivors still around from the Armenian genocide?

With respect to possible national reparations to the government of Armenia, does anyone really expect this to happen? A hundred years after Ataturk attempted to drag Turkey into the modern world, it still remains an ass-backwards country, and not an especially wealthy one.

The rest of you:

You are forgetting another uncomfortable aspect of the Armenian genocide: The role the Kurds played in it. Another reason few are interested in re-hashing this.

Also, Hitler was wrong about his main point: even if everyone did remember and care about the Armenian genocide, that doesn't mean they would have done anything to stop his genocide against the Jews and other undesirables. After all, most everyone today claims to care about and lament Hitler's genocide, but the world wasn't sufficiently motivated to stop subsequent genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, and Darfur. Prospects of all-out genocide in Iraq after a U.S. withdrawal elicit yawns.

In truth, Hitler's genocide remains a fascinating one-off, a man-bites-dog historical occurance. Not because of the who the victims were -- killing Jews en masse was old hat by then -- but because of who the perpetrators were: citizens of a modern, civilized, first world, European country. When Asians or Africans kill each other by the millions it's just sort boring and depressing; there doesn't seem to be any historic lesson in it save that, outside of a few islands of order and prosperity -- Europe, countries founded by Englishmen, the Northeast Asian democracies -- the world remains a savage and remorseless place.

Posted by Juan | August 22, 2007 5:58 PM

Actually, this still considerably understates the prevalence of Armenian-Holocaust-Deniers.

For example, Princeton's Bernard Lewis, one of America's most senior Near Eastern scholars has long claimed that the Great Armenian Holocaust was actually an "ethnic fable," a hoax concocted by Armenian activists to gain sympathy and political leverage.

Interestingly enough, Prof. Lewis is arguably the central neoconservative intellectual architect of our disastrous current Mid East policy.

I've always found it quite amusing that Bush's Mid East policy was actually formulated by America's most prominent academic "Holocaust Denier"...

Posted by RKU | August 22, 2007 6:23 PM

&chick - There exists a legitimate argument which states that the "Armenian genocide" was not, in fact, a genocide. It was a massacre, but might not rise to the legal threshold of genocide.

&chick argues that it wasn't genocide because other Armenians were left alone and just those in East Anatolia were eradicated, along with other Christians (the Chaldeans) needed to make Turkey the 99.5% pure Muslim country it is now - rather than one with a 10% non-Mulim minority as it was in 1900.
He argues that if you don't butcher all, then it isn't a genocide.
And his final argument is that the mass slaughter was "provoked" by Armenians who sought more rights and "went against Turkish interests".

My counterargument is:

1. Sparing a few in remote locales while exterminating all in the main body does not make a "legal exception to the term "genocide". IF American whites, Asians, and Hispanics decided to kill anyone who was more than 1/4th black to make a "safer America" - but spare blacks in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Alaska - it would still be a genocide.

2. Hitler knew what the Turks had done. Made an ethnically "pure nation" and gotten away with genocide. He had no doubts of intent. It was also eradicating the other CHristian infidels, the CHaldeans, that tipped off Hitler that the intent of the "Turkish Solution" was a successful drive for racial&religious purity, not punishment for flirting with the Russians.

3. Anyone wishing to do a genocide can claim "provocation". Some quite plausible. The Armenians were interested in peeling off the Sick Old, corrupt, malignantly Muslim overlords they had who had kept them in 2nd-class citizenship for 400 years. Peel off like the Greeks, Serbs, and other nationalities had done.

The Nazis had the plausible argument that the Jewish Bolsheviks had dominated Communism, set up the Red Terror, were behind the greatest mass homicide in human history inside the Soviet Union, 20 million by the time Hitler came to power. And that Jewish Communists under Rosa Luxumberg and Bela Cohen had tried for bloody takeovers of Hungary, Germany and Communist Jewish Transnationalists under the Trotskyites were continuing efforts to export Red Terror. Spain, China, the Balkans were "the Front" for the fight against bloody Communist revolution and class enemy liquidations in the 1930s.
What the Bolsheviks did was every bit as inspiring and educational on how to use tools of the State to achieve mass death and imprisonment of enemies as what Turkey did.
The Nazis learned much from Jewish Communists.
The slave labor system of Commissar Yagoda. The rationale and methods that Jews leading the Cheka and NKVD used against class enemies, starting with the Othodox priest liquidations. Trotsky's assigning a political officer to any military unit to ensure that all poltical enemies in a battlespace were killed or captured, as well as military threats. They even toured the Gulag system in the "friendship years" and made detailed notes and drawings that later became the basis of the architecture and layout of Nazi concentration, forced labor, and Death Camps.

The Indonesians had plausible argument and provocation that the Chicoms were out to make Indonesia into a Chinese satellite through a subversive enemy within of 700,000 Overseas Chinese. Who were in truth, heavily into communist plotting. So they declared Holy Jihad and dispatched 500,000 of those Chinese in a genocide in 1965.

*************************
The dilemma Jews and Israel faces is significant. Israel has few friends, and many of those have fairly dirty pasts. But at the same time, the tremendous wealth and power of Jews in the USA and in a few European countries leads to the expectation that Jews will use that reputation of their great influence over media and political leadership to give those allies, like Turkey, cover.
Even it that means that "the Holocaust and Never Again!" are effectively admitted by Foxman& Co. to not be some human rights universality, but a tribal thing in Jewish minds, limited to only their own travails, not Armenians or such..

Posted by Chris Ford | August 22, 2007 6:26 PM

The dilemma Jews and Israel faces is significant.

And yet the largest umbrella Jewish organization in the U.S. - certainly very "pro-Israel" - has come out in favor of calling the Armenian genocide just that (and has been on the record as such for a long time), yet simultaneously calling for a good relationship between Turkey and Israel.

Really not that big of a dilemma at all.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 7:48 PM

Turks exterminated 1.5 million Armenians. This is a fact beyond dispute. It is well documented. It is truly shameful that ADL would play politics with this issue.

Posted by DonB | August 22, 2007 8:22 PM

Re: For example, Princeton's Bernard Lewis, one of America's most senior Near Eastern scholars has long claimed that the Great Armenian Holocaust was actually an "ethnic fable," a hoax concocted by Armenian activists to gain sympathy and political leverage.

Odd, since Lewis in his dotage has become rather fanatically anti-Muslim. You'd think he'd be touting the Armenian genocide as Exhibit A against Islam.

Re: He argues that if you don't butcher all, then it isn't a genocide.

Hmm. Jews in the New World, Australia, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Britain, Ireland, Switzerland and Bulgaria were not massacred by the Nazis, therefore the Holocaust was not a genocide either.

Posted by JonF | August 22, 2007 8:25 PM

"Are there any survivors still around from the Armenian genocide?"

Actually yes. I've met several. The stories they tell are similar to what happened in Nazi Germany. Turks went village to village. Marked the doors of Armenians with a cross and gave them a few hours to get ready to leave, told hem they were taking them to a temporary internment camp but they would eventually go back to their villages. They slaughtered them and dumped their bodies in the river. The survivors remember that the Tigris river was red for days from the blood of massacred Armenians.

Modern day Turks don't have to pay reparations but they should acknowledge what happened. They owe it to the 1.5 million men, women and children who were exterminated.

Posted by DonB | August 22, 2007 8:32 PM

Some of have questioned my cynical hypothesis that Reparations are behind all this.

Here is a 2005 Press Release from ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America) re statements by Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER on this subject:
----------------
"PALLONE AND SCHUMER CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT TIME SQUARE RALLY


“There must be recognition, there must be restitution, there must be reparations for the Armenian Genocide.” -- Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ)


NEW YORK, NY – Speaking before a crowd of over eight thousand at an April 24th Times Square rally marking the 90th anniversary of Armenian Genocide, Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NY) and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) issued powerful calls for international recognition and justice for the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). ...

.. Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairman Frank Pallone, in remarks welcomed by sustained applause, argued forcefully for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the just resolution of the crime committed against the Armenian nation. The New Jersey Congressman closed his remarks with the following statement:

"I was reading the New York Times that the Turkish envoy said that not only did the Genocide never occur, but he suggested that the reason why Armenians want to recognize the Armenian Genocide today – want the Congress and the other countries to be on record – is because they wanted restitution and they wanted reparations. And I say to that 'Yes, we do!' It is important not only to recognize the genocide but we have to make it clear that those who committed it pay restitution. There has to be reparations because if there is no pain, if there is no consequence of genocide recognition, then that all would be futile. There must be recognition, there must be restitution, there must be reparations for the Armenian Genocide."

In moving remarks to Armenians gathered in New York from around the nation, Sen. Schumer stressed: "The persecution of Armenia continues today, in part because we do not recognize that Genocide. There is still a Turkish blockade of Armenia. There are continued desecrations of Armenian buildings and churches in the occupied lands. But what rubs salt in the wounds of those who have suffered is the refusal of the world to recognize their suffering and to recognize that a 'genocide' occurred. That is the ultimate indignity."

The New York Senator went on to note the importance of ensuring that the victims of genocide receive justice: "If despots in the dark corners of the world think that they can commit atrocity with out fear of punishment, then they will be encouraged to commit those atrocities. And so I say to all of you, we must prick the conscience of our nation and the world. We must never rest until the Armenian Genocide is recognized."

Ref: http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=758

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 8:35 PM

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) issued powerful calls for international recognition and justice for the Armenian Genocide,

The New York Senator went on to note the importance of ensuring that the victims of genocide receive justice: "If despots in the dark corners of the world think that they can commit atrocity with out fear of punishment, then they will be encouraged to commit those atrocities. And so I say to all of you, we must prick the conscience of our nation and the world. We must never rest until the Armenian Genocide is recognized."

And yet Schumer is like the AIPAC poster boy, right?

I think some people need to get some perspective here.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 8:38 PM

Interesting that no Jews here have attempted to refute Chris Ford's claims that Germany's genocide of the Jews was warranted as a response to Jewish Bolshevism. Is this because the heebs here believe this, or because they are too ignorant of this historical period to refute these sorts of claims?

Posted by Hyman Roth | August 22, 2007 8:47 PM

What happened in February of this year - the Prime Minister of Turkey comes to the U.S. and sets up a meeting of American Jewish groups to actively seek support to oppose the Armenian genocide bill.

Does he hold Turkey's relationship with Israel over their heads?

I don't know - maybe. It makes sense that at a minimum, it was implied.

But he's met with tepid support from most quarters - the bill has 226 sponsors - obviously that's hardly indicative a full court "Jewish lobby" (as Don W will tell us, it's the 2nd most powerful lobby in Washington) press against the bill, or that could never happen.

But a blowhard like Foxman runs with it, is made to look like an idiot, and turns tail. Very few people (Rubin, Lewis, etc..) came to this position organically - not that it's a defense, but I can see how an hysteric like Foxman can be either "charmed" or, in the alternative, pressured to do the obviously wrong thing.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 8:49 PM

Re "And yet Schumer is like the AIPAC poster boy, right?"
------------
Oh, he's a lot more than that. He runs a BIG pot of money called the DSCC (Democratic Senate Campaign Committee ) --now bigger than Howard Dean's DNC fund, since Howard didn't take S Daniel Abraham's hint.

Plus , Chuckie belongs to a pro-Israel propaganda front called Foundation for Defense of Democracies(FDD) --whose Board of Advisors consists of the usual suspects: William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Clifford May, etc. FDD's funded by billionaires Edgar S. Bronfmann Sr, Michael Steinhardt, Leonard Abramson,etc.
Vice Chairman used to be a guy from the Israel Embassy named Nir Boms. See http://www.amconmag.com/11_17_03/article1.html

So for Chuckie to twist the balls of Israel's prime ally definitely seems strange.

Nobody in their right mind casually fucks with the Turks -- but holding the threat of US-enforced reparations over them for no clear benefit seems to be in the ballpark.

Also seems very strange for Congress to be supporting this. The USA also needs Turkey -- and this Resolution is a good way to drive them into the arms of Putin and/or Iran. Look at the globe to see what that means.

I can usually figure things out by following the money but this time I'm baffled. Something's strange going on.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 9:09 PM

I can usually figure things out by following the money but this time I'm baffled. Something's strange going on.

"Zionists" are very tricky, Don.

Gotta keep you guessing.

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 22, 2007 9:26 PM

Re Hyman Roth's comment "Interesting that no Jews here have attempted to refute Chris Ford's claims that Germany's genocide of the Jews was warranted as a response to Jewish Bolshevism. Is this because the heebs here believe this, or because they are too ignorant of this historical period to refute these sorts of claims? "
-------------
Probably because:
a) Chris Ford did not make that claim
b) Nothing justified Hitler's Holocaust
c) The Nazis did engage in a death struggle with German Communists in the 1920s and only narrowly prevailed. A number of the Communist leaders
and radical Social Democrats were Jewish .
d)Hitler did gain support from many
middle class Germans by holding out the specter of Germany being destroyed by the Bolsheviks.
The Nazis always considered the Russian Communists to be implacable enemies -- and vice versa. The temporary Peace Treaty was based on the idea that diplomacy consists of saying "Nice Doggy" while reaching for a big rock.
e) There's no doubt that Hitler was a lying shithead. He incited anti-Semitism and hatred of the Social Democrats by citing the munitions strikes that were led by the Communists and radical Social Democrats at a critical point in World War I.

But he failed to note that it was the Bolsheviks' overthrow of the Russian Czar in 1917 that saved Germany's ass. And Russian Jews played a prominent role in that overthrow of Germany's wartime enemy. Hitler's claim that the war was not lost in 1918 was, of course, bullshit. As memos from the German Staff show.

e) We study history in an objective way to learn why things occurred so that we can hopefully prevent reoccurances. Fools who think Hitler was merely a madman who gained the allegiance of millions of Germans with his hypnotic stare are unlikely to recognize the next Hitler when he arises -- or recognize the conditions that allow him to seize power.
f) I think it's worthwhile to learn such things. If for no other reason, to know when to flee a country.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 9:31 PM

I repeat my earlier question in another thread on this topic: Why do we care?

Specifically, why does anybody in the US (who is not Armenian or Turkish) care what position the US takes or does not take on an old genocide? Does the US have to take a position on every barbarism ever done by some country in history?

As somebody else mentioned, it would be nice to start with England and their treatment of the Irish and the Scotts. Notice the comment by the secret police guy in "V for Vendetta" - "Your mother was Irish, wasn't she?"

Eventually, we might even get around to the United States and its genocide of the native Americans.

Other than Dennis Hastert getting a $50,000 bribe from the Turks to kill the Armenian bill, I don't see why anybody cares about this.

Unless of course the whole thing is connected in some way with what Sibel Edmonds has repeatedly said she has proof of - that "senior elected officials" in this government have direct connections with organized crime in Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East who are engaged in gun running, drug smuggling, and the nuclear weapons black market...

"Senior elected officials"...Hmmmm....

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 22, 2007 9:34 PM

There are several reasons why we (USA) want Turkey as an ally:

a) Because of Bush's aggression , the other major powers see us as a threat. The EU has a GDP equal to our own, Russia still has enough nukes to turn us into a pile of ashes, and China holds a lot of our debt.
b) However, we still have the Eurasian landmass divided and under control. We control the oil deposits upon which Europe depends.
c)Plus we have the support of Eastern European countries with long memories. If you look at who supported us on the Iraq resolution, the countries form a solid WALL separating Russia/China from western European. Starting with Denmark in the north down through Poland through Hungary to Turkey.
c) If you look at international trade, a lot of trade flows between the USA and Europe -- and Between the USA and Eastern Asia (China, Japan, S. Korea.) A much smaller amount flows between Eastern Europe/Russia and western Europe. We want to keep it that way so we continue to dominate the global economy -- and hence, the globe.
d) If Turkey goes with Russia, then Russia and Iran can lock the USA out of the Caspian Sea oil deposits and hand them to Europe and China.
e) Plus Turkey is our southern keystone since the loss of Iran. If Turkey is lost, then our control of the Middle East is threatened. The Suez canal is a goner, for example.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 9:50 PM

Even[if]it that means that "the Holocaust and Never Again!" are effectively admitted by Foxman& Co. to not be some human rights universality, but a tribal thing in Jewish minds, limited to only their own travails, not Armenians or such..

This raises some broader issues, among them the following.

The designation of events as “genocide” has long been a source of controversy, both as a matter of law and of historical description. The scholar R. J. Rummel, among others, has closely studied and written voluminously on this issue, even proposing a new term “democide” to provide a (not so useful) handle for distinguishing different episodes.

Where then does that leave the designation “holocaust”? Does it relate to some “human rights universality” that the world must struggle to “never again” experience? Or, is it to be privileged by restricting it to describe a unique historical event concerning the horrible acts committed against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany? If so, then what is the relevant scale that remains for assessing the other horrible human tragedies committed in other historical episodes?

In this context, if “blowhards” like Foxman are allowed to have their way, the “dilemma that Jews and Israel face” is not restricted to their position on the Armenian genocide issue. It also includes the blowback of “holocaust denial.”

Posted by Justin X | August 22, 2007 9:52 PM

Don Williams,

You have a vivid imagination. A few thoughts for you to chew on...

a) No one cares about the Suez Canal anymore. Nasser's nationalization of it turned out to be a pyric victory: today's super-tankers are too big to sail through the canal.

b) Whoever controls the oil in the Caspian Sea or anywhere else will be happy to sell it to us on the open market.

c) How do you figure we have "the Eurasian landmass" under control? We have our hands full trying to control tiny parts of it in Iraq and Afghanistan.

d) What the Turks want is to "go with" the EU, not Russia. EU membership would be a path to subsidizes and prosperity. Russia's GDP is the size of New Jersey's -- not large enough to help Turkey much at all.

e) There is plenty of trade between Europe and Russia if you consider natural gas; much of Europe is already dependent on Russian supplies.

f) The U.S. debt China holds is a benefit to China and the U.S.; dumping that debt would hurt China at least as much as it would hurt us. If China were to dump our bonds, it would lose most of its investment as its bond sales moved the market against it; the resulting decline in the dollar relative to the yuan would hurt Chinese exports to the U.S.

Posted by Won Dilliams | August 22, 2007 10:45 PM

Richard Steven Hack - Indeed, if you take the position that past injustices are a pile of junk and no one should care but for events in the here and present? Then who gives a flying rat's ass about your whining about being jailed and your past life's difficulties.

Fortunately for your ex-convict ass, most people believe the past matters, and all true problem -solving professions, from generals to engineers to sailors - seek to understand how past peoples every bit as smart as they dealt with issues and how best they can capitalize on learning curves.

***************

Interesting that no Jews here have attempted to refute Chris Ford's claims that Germany's genocide of the Jews was warranted as a response to Jewish Bolshevism.

Perhaps because you seek to exploit a true history into fabricating a straw horse?

The mass deaths Jews were heavily involved in concerned all of Europe as a massive threat, including such committed Nazi fighters as Churchill, Orwell.

WWI was bad enough for them. Then they faced the trauma of Jews and other Bolsheviks starting a mass murder campaign that started against Christians, and before the Nazis rose, had already eclipsed the WWI death toll. The great wisdom of Churchill and others who hated the Jewish Bolsheviks was they were acute enough to realize the Nazi "antidote" to Transnational Communism was actually worse than the Jewish Bolshevik disease.

Because Churchill and others, who publicly detested Jewish anarchists, liquidators, and troublemakers -, found no ethical or legal rationale for genocide. Neither do I.

The brilliant defense of Jewish Communists was to use clout over the media to claim the "real problem" was not Jews calling the Soviet shots for almost 2 decades, even running communism - but to argue that the peaceful wonderful progressivism of Communism and Red Terror was all screwed up by only One Evil Man, Stalin.

Quite similar to those that now insist that radical Islam is hunky dory, and the only real threat among the 300 million Muslims that endorse "infidel-killings" is "the CEO of all bad things, OBL."

Posted by Chris Ford | August 22, 2007 11:23 PM

Re Chris Ford's comments on "the Jewish Bolshevik disease."
------------
Some Jews supported the Bolsheviks and some were leaders in the movement. But the Bolsheviks were not a Jewish movement -- the Jewish population in Russia was too small. They had significant influence at times --as David Lloyd George attests -- but as a minority.

Plus the Jewish Bund tended to support the opponents of the Bolsheviks -- the Mensheviks -- and to suffer reprisals as a result.

The Nazis did not fear the Jews of Russia -- they feared the massive numbers of Russian Communists, most of whom were non-Jewish.

Posted by Don Williams | August 23, 2007 12:31 AM

The Bolsheviks killed religious leaders, including rabbis, in their campaigns. Chris Ford's commenti s a bit like calling the Ba'athists a Christian organization because one of their two main Syrian ideological founders was a Christian. If you want to look at some special relationship between European Judaism and communism, one could argue that communism was one of the primary ideologies to come out of Europe since the Enlightenment that recoiled in disgust at social injustice in Europe, especially the injustices of religious intolerance - primarily anti-Semitism and the Wars of Religion - and sexism. Liberalism and social democracy were the other two main ideologies to come out of this search for justice and were the only two that actually worked.

Posted by Reality Man | August 23, 2007 1:49 AM

Re: Plus we have the support of Eastern European countries with long memories.

I don't know that a "long" memory is needed there. 1989 is not that far back in the past, and even 1945 has not passed entirely out of the living human brain. A long memory to me implies concerns over things that happened before anyone was born-- the South long obessessing over the Civil War, or Arabs over the Crusades.

Posted by Jonf | August 23, 2007 7:11 AM

"there's no reason for Jewish civil society groups to be going down this path."

Even Zionist/Jewish Aleks agrees that Jewish groups should condemn the Armenian genocide.

Posted by aleks | August 23, 2007 7:20 AM

Re Won Dilliams comment "Don Williams,

You have a vivid imagination. A few thoughts for you to chew on...
-----------
[My responses in brackets]

a) No one cares about the Suez Canal anymore. Nasser's nationalization of it turned out to be a pyric victory: today's super-tankers are too big to sail through the canal.
[Suez has been reopened and dredged out to accommodate most tankers. This source says it now carries 14% of maritime trade and notes its strategic importance:
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/conc5en/ch5c1en.html ]

b) Whoever controls the oil in the Caspian Sea or anywhere else will be happy to sell it to us on the open market.
[Yes, in the same way that VISA is happy to give me a cash advance on my credit card for only 30% APR plus fees ]

c) How do you figure we have "the Eurasian landmass" under control? We have our hands full trying to control tiny parts of it in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[You don't control a herd by micromanaging the movement of each steer -- you control the herd. Actually, you hire proxies (cowboys) to do so]

d) What the Turks want is to "go with" the EU, not Russia. EU membership would be a path to subsidizes and prosperity. Russia's GDP is the size of New Jersey's -- not large enough to help Turkey much at all.
[Yes but the Europeans are pussies and the Russians have nukes. Turks of all people understand the difference. ]

e) There is plenty of trade between Europe and Russia if you consider natural gas; much of Europe is already dependent on Russian supplies.
[And the Turks had the balls to close off the Bosphorus to Russian tankers carrying Caspian Sea oil --even though a 1929 Treaty gives Russia free passage. Turks claimed to be concerned about oil spills and environmental damage. Russians thought US was twisting their tail in order to get a piece of the Caspian Sea pie. Again, look at whom Chevron named one of their oil tankers after. ]

f) The U.S. debt China holds is a benefit to China and the U.S.; dumping that debt would hurt China at least as much as it would hurt us. If China were to dump our bonds, it would lose most of its investment as its bond sales moved the market against it; the resulting decline in the dollar relative to the yuan would hurt Chinese exports to the U.S.
[Yes, the ruling powers of Communist China can tightly controlled by the same buttons that control rich capitalists. So how well did that approach work in dealing with North Vietnam in the 1960s?]

Posted by Don Williams | August 23, 2007 8:46 AM

Don W:

"And the Turks had the balls to close off the Bosphorus to Russian tankers..."

But I thought you just said that Turkey choosing to "go with" Russia is a serious threat?

Posted by Joe G. | August 23, 2007 9:37 AM

Don W:

"And the Turks had the balls to close off the Bosphorus to Russian tankers..."

But I thought you just said that Turkey choosing to "go with" Russia is a serious threat?

Posted by Joe G. | August 23, 2007 9:38 AM

See how confused you made me?

Posted by Joe G. | August 23, 2007 9:44 AM

Re Joe G comment "But I thought you just said that Turkey choosing to "go with" Russia is a serious threat"
---------
The Turks closed off the Bosphorus when Clinton was armtwisting the Russians for access to the Caspian Sea oil. That's because they were --and so far still are -- on our side.

If we screw them badly with Armenian reparations, however, then they can switch to the Russians.

They could say, for example, "That's a nice oil pipeline you have running through our mountains. Too bad if something happened to it."
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_pipeline

Posted by Don Williams | August 23, 2007 10:19 AM

"If we screw them badly with Armenian reparations, however, then they can switch to the Russians."

You're right. If there are any practical interests that could possibly be harmed by doing the right thing, we shouldn't do it. What a courageous person you are, Don Williams.

As an aside, didn't the Turks "screw" themselves by committing genocide? Reparations, as with all corrective justice, would simply restore the parties (as much as possible) to the position they were in before the injustice. Now, its pretty tough to "restore" a group who have been massacred by genocide, as the Armenians in Anatolia were, but "copious amounts of money" is a good place to start.

Posted by Father Figure | August 23, 2007 12:26 PM

Re: Yes but the Europeans are pussies and the Russians have nukes. Turks of all people understand the difference.

Turkey and Russia are historic enemies and there's still some areas of potential friction between them involving control of the Black Sea and whose influence should be paramount in the former Soviet (and ethnically Turkic) republics of Central Asia. What was true in the 19th century is true today: Turkey's best allies (if not the US) are in Western Europe, two of which nations also have nukes.

Posted by Jonf | August 23, 2007 12:49 PM

The threat of reparations to Armenians probably isn't all *that* huge, actually - they were probably quite poor, so there will probably not be many cases like the wealthy European Jewish families who lost priceless paintings, expensive real estate, gold, etc. (Not that all European Jews were wealthy.)

And I'd be willing to bet that if Turkey has to pay reparations, they'd find it fairly easy to extract some benefit from the US which would ease the pain and possibly make it a wash. Some advanced military hardware, perhaps.

Posted by Jon H | August 23, 2007 12:56 PM

Don Williams wrote: They could say, for example, "That's a nice oil pipeline you have running through our mountains. Too bad if something happened to it."

1) I feel like I shouldn't have to mention this, but the whole point of the BTC and all of the attendant discussion about its path is that it doesn't run though Russia's mountains. It runs across Azerbaijan, though a bunch of small towns in Georgia, and to Turkey.

If DW's point is that Russia has the capacity to sabotage the BTC despite the fact that the BTC does not touch Russia's territory - fair enough. However, as the South Caucasus are a reasonably chaotic place, the pipeline is well buried. Moreover, the US has spent upwards of $120 million training the Georgian army to: 1) fight in Iraq and b) protect the pipeline.

2) One more thing about the geography of the BTC. It most pointedly does not run though Armenia, which would have been the most logical route. Didn't somebody say something about "shooting oneselves in the foot?" Perhaps if you are a geographically isolated, landlocked country with no natural resources and a staggering emigration rate, it might not be the best idea to spend all of one's political capital creating problem's with one's neighbors.

Posted by &chik | August 23, 2007 1:20 PM

Re chik's comment "I feel like I shouldn't have to mention this, but the whole point of the BTC and all of the attendant discussion about its path is that it doesn't run though Russia's mountains"
---------
You weren't reading my post. The BTC runs -- as the link I included clearly shows -- through TURKEY's mountains. For a very long way. (thousand plus miles??)

What I was suggesting was that if we screw the Turk by pushing for Armenian reparations, then the TURKS (NOT the Russians) could respond by pointing to our Caspian Sea oil pipeline (BTC) and suggesting that some unfortunate things could happen to it. Especially if the Turks drop their alliance with us and take up with the Russians.

Yes, the pipeline is buried. And probably alarmed with sonic sensors. Which means nothing -- some Turkish soldier ..er, I mean "Armenian bandit" could sit on an isolated mountain , dig down to it with a shovel or trowel , and place a thermite grenade on it. Or insert an explosive satchel with a timer into the pipeline at service points. The Turks are strong enough to protect BTC -- or to easily sabotage it while making bland gestures of trying to protect "US property".

Posted by Don Williams | August 23, 2007 1:55 PM