A reader emails this International Herald Tribune account of the flipside of the bizarre scenario by which American Jewish groups found themselves denying that there was any Armenian Genocide during World War One. The point is to refocus the lines of causation back on the Turkish government which took it upon itself to lean very heavily on diaspora groups and, in effect, blackmail them with the idea that Israel would be made to bare the consequences of their failure to step into line.
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Pressure's On
10 Oct 2007 09:13 am
Comments (20)
Fuck the Turks, why the hell are they an ally of ours? Mein Kampf was a best-seller in that country, and they condition their populace to think that they're racially superior to everyone else. The Kurds deserve our support so much more.
Yes Wurd, good idea, let's p*ss off a non-radical Muslim majority (semi-)democracy that's been a key NATO ally, is in a very important strategic postion, has a young population and a rapidly growing economy, and has been a supporter of Israel.
I agree that Turkish treatment of the Kurds is a serious problem, as are human rights more generally. But we really shouldn't go around doing even more to antagonize Muslims.
Matt, your charge that American Jewish groups "denied" the Armenian genocide is a very serious one, and one that I believe to be false.
It is true that major American Jewish groups have opposed a Congresional resolution declaring that the Armenian massacres constituted genocide, and that they did so in response to pressure from the Turks, who threatened serious consequences for Israel. To their credit, American Jews disagree with this policy and support the bill, even though its passage will undoubtedly harm Israel. The groundswell of support for the bill among American Jews has caused the organized Jewish community - including AIPAC and ADL - to cease their lobbying and to take a neutral position.
But to my knowledge no American Jewish group ever opposed the bill on the grounds that the Armenian genocide did not happen. The opposition has been on the ground that formal congressional action will do nothing to help Armenians and will hurt Israel. I believe that your charge that "American Jewish groups found themselves denying that there was any Armenian Genocide" is false.
If you can find an example of an American Jewish group that "denied" the Armenian genocide please let us know. Otherwise, your should edit your post to delete the false claim that American Jews have denied the existence of the Armenian genocide. The implicit comparison of American Jews to Holocaust-deniers is offensive.
Attachked is a link to an editorial in todays' Washington Post on this subject. The gist is that the supporters are pandering.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/09/AR2007100901892.html?sub=AR
Hey Dave,
All of your statements, minus the NATO part, are true of Iranians as well, yet you seem like the kind of guy who thinks nuking Iran is a good idea.
Any country where Mein Kampf is a best seller is no friend of ours, end of story.
Hey Dave,
All of your statements, minus the NATO part, are true of Iranians as well, yet you seem like the kind of guy who thinks nuking Iran is a good idea.
Any country where Mein Kampf is a best seller is no friend of ours, end of story. Oh and btw, the best-selling movie of 2005 was Valley of the Wolves, a movie where a Turkish soldier fights and kills Americans in Iraq. Some ally huh.
"yet you seem like the kind of guy who thinks nuking Iran is a good idea."
Wow, what a mind reader! You divine that from two paragraphs? Genius!
Actually, I think bombing Iran is a terrible idea, and would love to see the U.S. work on better relations with Iran, while simultaneously isolating their nutjob president.
But seriously, "Any country where Mein Kampf is a best seller is no friend of ours, end of story." Well, that's a rational approach to foreign policy. (BTW, I have no idea as to whether your claim as to Mein Kampf is true.)
And maybe "Valley of the Wolves" is popular because there are some Americans who write "F*** the Turks".
But to my knowledge no American Jewish group ever opposed the bill on the grounds that the Armenian genocide did not happen. The opposition has been on the ground that formal congressional action will do nothing to help Armenians and will hurt Israel. I believe that your charge that "American Jewish groups found themselves denying that there was any Armenian Genocide" is false.
You know Bloix, if you cared to look behind the rhetoric, you would find a lot of Arab anti-semitism and Holocaust denial is strategic, too. That doesn't make it right.
And yes, opposing a resolution that simply says that a genocide happened is genocide denial.
"Any country where Mein Kampf is a best seller is no friend of ours, end of story.
Posted by Wurd | October 10, 2007 11:44 AM"
To what extent was it a bestseller out of curiosity or out of agreement? I would be interested in seeing how this relates to Kemalism and its gradual disintegration as the supposedly universally shared ideology of the Turkish people. It should also be noted that only a minority of Kurdish votes for whatever reason have gone to separatist parties. You also don't need to have anywhere near a majority of any population to buy a book for it to be a bestseller. Think of how many bestsellers in this country don't reach the 10 million copies sold mark. Turkey also hasn't exactly been trending towards the secular (with religious cultural residue) or Nazism, but more towards the AK Party.
I am the last person you'd find stepping up to support Abe Foxman or AIPAC, and I have to agree with Bloix's point. Dilan, it stretches things considerably to characterize the original ADL position as "genocide denial".
The government of Israel's position, and AIPAC's, is much more like the U.S. government's during the Rwandan genocide: willing to acknowledge the scale of the killing, but unwilling for reasons of realpolitik to use the word 'genocide' to characterize it.
Matt's characterization is unfair, but because of his use of shorthand. If he were writing a longer, more nuanced article, I doubt he'd allow the impression to stand that AIPAC's position is that a million or more Armenians were not killed by Turkish action in 1915-1917. Their position is that they don't want the U.S. Congress to label that atrocity a genocide. It's a wrong position, but not 'denial', as in 'holocaust denial'.
I apologize Dave and Reality Man. By any chance, have either of you recently bought Mein Kampf "out of curiosity"?
Oh and of course their admiration of Nazism has nothing to do with the fact that unlike Germany, Turkey hasn't apologized for its genocide, the second largest systematic genocide of the 20th century. Or the fact that Turkish and Kurdish villagers gladly lynched, raped, and executed their own neighbors for some loot. No, nothing to do with it at all.
Turkey's pressure tactics are getting results in some quarters:
"White House and Turkey Fight Bill on Armenia"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/10/AR2007101001280.html?hpid=topnews
I am the last person you'd find stepping up to support Abe Foxman or AIPAC, and I have to agree with Bloix's point. Dilan, it stretches things considerably to characterize the original ADL position as "genocide denial".
Sure it is. How would the ADL react if some Arab group said the following: "it's unfortunate that many Jews died during the awful period of World War II. However, because we do not want to offend some supporters of the Palestinian cause, we will not support any resolution condemning the killings of Jews during World War II and labeling it a genocide"?
Come on. If you refuse to call it a genocide and you refuse to support resolutions condemning what happened, that is a form of genocide denial. We should hold the ADL to the same standard we hold Holocaust deniers-- we don't permit them any excuses, and we shouldn't permit the ADL any. If it wants to deny genocide because it thinks the Israel-Turkey relationship is more important, than that's what their strategy should be labeled: denying a genocide to preserve the Israel-Turkey relationship.
I agree with Dilan. Plus, if you let them get away with the Armenian genocide, it's only a matter of time before they turn their sights on Israel. Somebody has to teach them a lesson, Europe should not let the Republic of Turkkkey in.
Having spent too much time in an Obsidian Wings thread this afternoon supporting the Congressional resolution, I've got no time to continue trying to preserve a distinction created by sloppy wording on Matt's part.
The Turkish government not only denies the atrocities amounted to genocide, they deny the responsibility for the atrocities and minimize the results, and have criminalized the act of publicly acknowledging the Turkish responsibility for the deaths of a million or more Armenians. _That_'s denial.
The position that AIPAC and the government of Israel and Abe Foxman are pushing is wrong, as I said above, but these organizations are not denying that the Turks are responsible for the deaths of a million or more Armenians. They do not deny the facts of the events. This is what makes their realpolitik reluctance to apply the accurate name to the crime ultimately untenable. But obliterating the distinction between their position and the government of Turkey is wrong, as well as unhelpful.
The position that AIPAC and the government of Israel and Abe Foxman are pushing is wrong, as I said above, but these organizations are not denying that the Turks are responsible for the deaths of a million or more Armenians. They do not deny the facts of the events.
I don't know if AIPAC has taken a position on the Armenian Genocide (probably not), but Israel has definitely denied that the Armenian genocide occurred. This is what then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in April 2001:
"We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide.""
See here:
http://www.anca.org/action_alerts/actionalerts.php?aaid=23
Also, until recently, the Anti-Defamation League refused to take a position on the Armenian genocide, until the pressure became so great that they had to take a stand. Again, see here:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3440382,00.html
A friend in Istanbul kept telling me that much of Turkey's secularist elite (such as the previous government's Foreign Secretary) is made up of a tiny ethnic minority, the Donme, who are descended from Salonikan followers of the 17th Century False Messiah Shabbetai Zevi, and that this cultural affinity between Israeli Jews and Turkish crypto-Jews is one factor in the traditionally warm relations between the countries.
I thought he was nuts, until I looked into it, and, whattaya know, it turned out to be true. The old Byzantine world is a lot more Byzantine than us simple-minded Americans can imagine.
I see no point in the US taking any position on a foreign conflict which had nothing to do with it.
Fuck the Turks, fuck the Armenians, and especially fuck the Israelis.
Whatever happened in Turkey and Armenia in WWI is no business of the US as an official state position.
Let the historians argue over whether the massacres amounted to "genocide".
We do not NEED to come down on either side and therefore should not.
The position that AIPAC and the government of Israel and Abe Foxman are pushing is wrong, as I said above, but these organizations are not denying that the Turks are responsible for the deaths of a million or more Armenians. They do not deny the facts of the events.
Again, though, would we accept this distinction from anti-semites. "Oh, I don't deny a lot of Jews were killed, and the Germans were responsible for those deaths, but it was not genocide and I will oppose any resolution condemning it as such."
I think that, for good reason, polite society treats Holocaust denial and Holocaust minimization as equivalent. Indeed, quite a bit of what we call Holocaust denial is really Holocaust minimization-- the person concedes that the Germans killed Jews, but says it wasn't 6 million, they didn't use gas chambers, other people died, etc.
Well, if that's the standard, than the ADL is doing the same thing here. Sure, the Turks killed Armenians, but it wasn't a genocide. It was a bloody time, there was chaos and anarchy, etc.
It's genocide minimization. Or genocide excuse making. And that's the same thing as genocide denial.
Comments closed October 24, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
That's "bear" the consequences.
And the sooner we can figure out how to treat Israel as a nation like any other, the happier I'll be, and the better off the country will be.
Posted by lambert strether | October 10, 2007 9:49 AM