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No Other Word For It
by Zev Chafets, New York Daily News - April 22, 2001
Posted: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 at 09:25 PM CT
Question: When is a genocide not a genocide?
Answer: When Turkey says it isn't.
Between 1915 and 1923, the Turkish government systematically slaughtered
hundreds of thousands of its Armenian subjects.
Some historians put the number at more than 1 million.
Today, Armenian-Americans will gather in Times Square to commemorate Martyrs
Day. Present will be the sons and
daughters of the survivors. Absent will be any representative of the U.S.
government. As far as official Washington is
concerned, the massacre of the Armenian people was a shame, but none dare
call it genocide.
"A tragedy and not genocide?" says Sam Azadian of Flatbush, Brooklyn, who's
chairman of the Times Square memorial. "Then
you tell me, what constitutes genocide if not two-thirds of a people being
driven into the desert and murdered?"
Most experts agree that the events of 1915-23 constitute genocide. So do
presidential candidates; after all, there are between
600,000 and 1 million well-organized Armenian-Americans, most of them in key
electoral states like California, Michigan, New
Jersey and New York. But when they reach the White House, Presidents start
to stammer.
"Every year, [former President Bill] Clinton issued a proclamation on
Martyrs Day," says Rouben Adalian, director of the
Washington-based Armenian National Institute. "His description of what
happened to us was a dictionary definition of
genocide. But he refused to use the word."
President Bush has, too. During the campaign, he promised to "ensure that
our nation properly recognizes the suffering of the
Armenian people" — political code for using the G-word — but he has yet to
follow through.
The U.S. is not the only country to cave in to pressure from Ankara. The
Turkish Daily News recently quoted Israeli Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres saying, "We reject the attempts to create a similarity
between the Holocaust and the Armenian
allegations. It was a tragedy what the Armenians went though, but not a
genocide."
After protests poured into Israeli embassies around the world and critics at
home denounced him for "Holocaust denial," Peres
claimed to have been partially misquoted. But in light of Israel's longtime
refusal to acknowledge what happened to the
Armenians as genocide, his clarification isn't very convincing.
The Armenian community is also mad at the leadership of American Jewry.
"Their response matters to us very much because
we have common histories, common experiences," says Adalian. "And I haven't
seen any Jewish organization condemning what
Peres said, going on the record."
That's because on the Armenian issue, most major Jewish organizations are
pledged to a policy of double talk. "We have great
sympathy for the Armenians, but we also have some sensitivity for the
feeling of the government of Turkey," says Barry Jacobs,
director of strategic studies for the American Jewish Committee.
This sensitivity was once based on blackmail — in the 1980s, Turkey
threatened to cut off the escape route of Iranian Jews if
Israel and American Jewish organizations recognized the Armenian genocide.
Today, it's a matter of strategic and economic
cooperation. "Last winter, Israel, Turkey and the United States staged
tripartite navel maneuvers," says Jacobs. "That sent a
strong message in the region."
The refusal to call what the Turks did by its right name sends a message,
too: That for a price, a nation can purchase a revision
of its history, even from governments and groups that ought to know better.
It's an ugly bargain, but it won't hold for long. In
the end, history gets written by its survivors — and despite Turkish
efforts, the Armenians are still here. Go over to Times
Square today and see for yourself.
[Groong Note: Zev Chafets was born in Pontiac, Michigan, and moved to Israel
in 1967. After active military service in the
1973 Yom Kippur War, he rose to the leadership of the Israeli Government
Press Office under Menachim Begin. He is the
author of several highly praised works of fiction and nonfiction. Currently
a columnist for the Jerusalem Report, he is married to
the journalist Lisa Beyer. They live with their children in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem].
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