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The Armenian and Arab causes
[Translated Exclusively for ANN/Groong by Katia M. Peltekian]
History is full of events during which people have oppressed other people to build a society based on the idea of racial superiority. Therefore, there is a similarity among nations that have resisted, sacrificed and demanded the return of their rights from the oppressors who have denied their crime.
Between the Armenia cause and the Arab cause, there are many similarities especially that of the denial of the guilty party that it has committed a crime in order to avoid paying compensation. Ankara's behavior towards the Armenians became a model that Israel adopted with the Arabs.
The Turks did not accept the idea of an autonomous nation for the Armenians. And after the Young Turks came to power, they took advantage of World War One and took action against the Armenians. Six hundred Armenians - leaders and writers - were arrested in Istanbul and deported to the desert where they perished. A while later, the mass-murders and deportations of the Armenian people began; thus the Armenians were uprooted from their lands as the powerful nations were engaged with the Great War.
The Armenians have lived on the lands currently called Turkey for more than 1,500 years, and it used to be called the Kingdom of Armenia. On the other hand, the Turks came from Uzbekistan and Central Asia and conquered these lands. With time, the Armenians became a minority in their own lands as the Turks reproduced in large numbers. The ruins of the Armenian civilization found in Present Turkey are living proof of the existence of the Armenians on those lands. Later, Turkey considered the Armenians to be an obstacle for their political and economic ideologies, so it resorted to eliminating that obstacle by committing a genocide. In fact, Turkey wanted to put an end to the Armenians' control over the economy, finance and culture. Some of the Armenians resisted the Turk oppression and did not give in, but fought back. Some were later carried out on French ships, and those who survived the genocide were dispersed around the world.
The method that the Turks used to change the heterogeneous Ottoman society and establish a homogeneous Turkic nation is in itself a genocide. To strengthen their policies, the Turks began massacring and deporting a whole nation of Armenians and Arabs from Armenia and Iskandaroun.
Today, as Israel occupies parts of Arab countries, refuses to carry out international agreements and practices oppression against the Arabs, the Palestinians are going through the same misfortune as the Armenians suffered decades ago. The Palestinians were driven out of their lands after the Zionist people began buying Palestinian lands and immigrating in large numbers. Israel was able to drive the Palestinians out of their lands and make refugees of them in so many parts of the world. Then it legalized the existence of Israel because it had great influence over the world governments. And now, after the extreme right has taken power in Israel, we see the killing of women and children who resist the oppression and defend their lands. The Palestinians are under economical siege. Israel is practicing the worst kind of violence against them to drive out those who have stayed. In addition, Israel's refusal of the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland is in itself a denial of its responsibility in making most of the Palestinians refugees scattered in the neighboring countries and living in poverty and starvation.
The United States of America has always been the sponsor in the peace process, but its current administration has abandoned its role as mediator; instead, it has taken up the role of advising the Arabs to practice self-control. This has given impetus to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to escalate his aggression against the Palestinians. The indifference of the world towards the Palestinian plight is similar to the indifference that it showed when the Armenians went through the ugliest aggression, oppression and murder in the history of mankind.
Therefore, the welfare of the Armenians and the Arabs is the same -
in history and geography - as both of them have faced the danger of
annihilation and deportation. This is why we should cooperate and
coordinate with the Arab World in order to push forward the
liberation process. The right of any nation will be returned no
matter how long it takes. Arab and Armenian diasporas can pressure
powerful countries into recognizing their cause and right.
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