Yair Auron - The Banality of Denial. Israel and The Armenian Genocide
Yair Auron - The Banality of Denial. Israel and The Armenian Genocide
Yair Auron - The Banality of Denial. Israel and The Armenian Genocide
BANALITY
of
DENIAL
The
BANALITY
of
DENIAL
Israel and the
Armenian Genocide
Yair Auron
Transaction Publishers
New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)
2002040933
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ix
1
23
45
61
71
101
297
301
303
311
315
Bibliography
Index
321
329
136
137
185
199
215
283
Preface
It all began during Passover vacation when I had to write the introduction
to my school project, Roots, about the history of my family. My father
dedicated his first book to the memory of his parents (that is, my grandfather and grandmother). Right now he is finishing writing his fifth book,
which deals with the attitudes of the State of Israel towards the Armenian
Genocide. He had thought to dedicate it to the memory of his grandmother
(that is, to my great grandmother) who was murderedso he heard from
his fatherin the Holocaust, and to the memory of the anonymous victims
of all genocides.
Since my father was not sure about the name of his grandmother, he
checked it with his sister, Sarale, who is named after one of their grandmothers, Sarah. After examining the issue in the Roots of her own daughter, she found out that she was named after the mother of their mother, who
died in Palestine in 1937. She added that in the Roots her daughter wrote,
her grandmother Sima (the mother of their father) died in Poland in 1938,
which, as far as she remembers, was what our grandfather, Mordechai, or
Motek Yarlicht, told her. This did not fit with my fathers memory about
what our grandfather had told him.
The fact that what my father remembers contradicts what is written in
the Roots of his niece greatly bothered him. Finally, he telephoned the
only cousin of his father, Malka, who lives in the United States, and checked
with her. Malka, who was in her early twenties during the Holocaust, has a
very sharp memory. She gave my father a very unequivocal answer that his
grandmother, Sima, was murdered in the Holocaust together with her mother
and father. She also told my father that my grandfather had fourteen sisters,
stepbrothers, and stepsisters, and that all of them were murdered in the
Holocausta fact that my father and his brother and sister never knew.
We still have no answer as to why my grandfather did not tell these facts
to his children. Also, we have no answer as to why my father and his brother
and sister never really asked him to tell them the story of the family during
the Holocaust, even when they were adults. I will try to answer these questions in my Roots.
Preface
xi
xii
ment and the Jewish community of Palestine before the creation of the
State of Israel in 1948. Instead, I found, as will be elaborated later,
much indifference and an attitude that stressed the particular rather than
the universal. The results of the first part of the project were published
in my book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian
Genocide.
After the book was published I turned to study in detail the attitude
of the State of Israel toward the Armenian Genocide. It seems to me
that every societyas well as every human beingshould explore his
or her personal and collective history and identity. Knowing and facing
our own history should be part of our behavior and consciousness in
both the present and the future. In my opinion, we can not avoid this
self-examination, including looking through the difficult and black pages
of our individual as well as our collective past.
In 1993 I wrote the book Jewish-Israeli Identity, in which the main
sub-identities in Jewish-Israeli society are described and analyzed: a
secular identity, a traditional identity, a religious-national identity, and
the religious ultra-orthodox identity. I found that there are only a few
common points between these sub-identities and a lot of tensions. One
of the rare common points is the Holocaust, which has, as we will see,
a very significant role in Jewish-Israeli identity. But the memory and
the lessons of the Holocaust have aroused many polemics and debates
during the last two decades (the same tension between specific national
and religious ramifications vis--vis the universalistic ones). The tension in Jewish-Israeli identity, I found, has two poles:
(a) the complicated relations between Jewish religion and modern Jewish nationality;
(b) the relations between Jewishness and Israeliness.
Those tensions (which are elaborated more in the first chapter of the
book) are a menace for the democratic, tolerant, and pluralistic character of the State of Israel. Some sub-identities (some sectors) have difficulties in accepting the legitimacy of the other sub-identities. There are
also tensions between the democratic character and the Jewish character of the State of Israel.
After I published The Banality of Indifference in Hebrew in 1995, I
wrote We Are All German Jews: Jewish Radicals in France During the
Sixties and Seventies. I was attracted by the hidden and often repressed
components of Jewish identity of this generation, which was affected
Preface
xiii
Levis claim is very clear and very frightening: This event happened so it can happen again. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.2 For me, this is the central moral observation to be derived
from the Holocaust and other acts of genocide: human beings committed it against other human beings and therefore they can do it again
everywhere. Therefore, following Levi and others, we have to ask ourselves what can each of us do to prevent or at least to minimize this
threat. And then, less than a decade after this visionary statement, and
when the Holocaust was present more than ever in the consciousness
and memory of the world, which kept saying, Never again, all of us
have witnessed the genocides in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The latter could have easily been prevented.
In this regard we can clearly say that we, humanity, did not learn
anything from the lessons of the Holocaust. Learning from the past,
xiv
Primo Levi, The Drowned and The Saved (New York: Vintage Books,
1989), pp. 202-203.
Ibid., p. 199.
Introduction
We Zionists look upon the fate of the Armenian people with
a deep and sincere sympathy; we do so as men, as Jews,
and as Zionists.Shmuel Tolkowsky, 1918
This study seeks to examine the current attitudes of the State of Israel and its leading institutions toward the Armenian Genocide. It is the
second part of a project that examines Jewish-Israeli attitudes toward
the Armenian Genocide. The first part of this study can be found in The
Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide.2
The first part explored the attitude of the Jewish community (the
Yishuv) in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael) before the creation of the State of
Israel in 1948, and that of the Zionist leadership toward the massacres
committed by the Turks against the Armenians in the early twentieth
century. The study had a dual purpose: to raise awareness of the genocide of the Armenian people, and to raise theoretical and philosophical
questions that relate directly and indirectly to the specific debate in
Israel and throughout the world regarding the concept of genocide, and
the uniqueness of the Holocaust in comparison to other instances of
genocide.
The principal part of the first book is the chapters that discuss The
Reactors to the destruction of the Armenians and The Indifferent to
it. The categorization into two groups should not mislead us: in reality,
the vast majority of the Yishuv was indifferent; only a small minority
reacted.
Both parts of this study offer an opportunity to explore a particular
case of a general phenomenon that goes beyond the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish attitude: that of the reaction of the bystander who
remains on the sidelines while atrocities take place. To the question
implicit in these pageswhy does one person react while another does
not?there is no one, definitive answer. An abundance of emotions,
opinions, and differing circumstances shape ones decision, conscious
or unconscious, to take action. Individuals who are absorbed in themselves, in their peers, or in their nation tend to have difficulty relating to
the distress of other individuals, movements, or nationalities.
The leaders of the Yishuv and the Zionist Movement, as described
and analyzed in the first part of this study, were involved in a battle,
existential in many senses, to preserve and advance the nascent Zionist
enterprise. During the period of the First World War, they were struggling for survival. The Zionist Movement won this battle. However, the
almost total absorption in the Zionist cause appears to be one of the
main reasons why the leaders of the Yishuv and the Zionist Movement
ignored or remained indifferent to the Armenian tragedy. For the most part,
their Zionist perspective caused them, it must be admitted, to take the side
of the Young Turks, the side of the perpetrator, or to remain on the
sidelines. Considerations of realpolitik tipped the scale.
Those among the Zionists who reacted, those who protested, those
who felt a moral and humane, and sometimes explicitly Jewish revulsion toward the genocide of the Armenians, shared two characteristics.
The first related to their originthe majority of them were born in
Palestine. They were connected to the land; they spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and French; and they were more critical of, and less submissive to,
the Turkish ruler than the new immigrants, mostly Russian-born, who
Introduction
arrived in the second wave of immigration after 1904. These Palestinian-born Jews were open to Western culture; some had studied in France
and were familiar with and influenced by French culture. They displayed more sensitivity and openness to the suffering of the Armenians.
The second, and even more significant characteristic related to their
individualism. Those who reacted and those who extended a hand of
support were, in one way or another, exceptional people. They did not
follow convention; they were people of independent mind, characterized as troublemakers, and also critical in their approach to the Zionist establishment.
I concluded the first book by referring to Hannah Arendts concept
of the banality of evil. In her Eichmann in Jerusalem, she describes
Adolf Eichmanns last minutes before his execution: He [Eichmann]
was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness has
taught usthe lesson which could not be verbalized and comprehended
the banality of evil.3
Arendts important, original, and controversial book was rejected by
Israeli intellectuals and the Israeli academic community, which included
some of Arendts close friends. Despite its wide publication around the
world, her book was not translated into Hebrew until the year 2000,
thirty-seven years after its first publication, and even then it raised a
debate in Israel. The book is critical of the role of the Jews and implies
that they had retrospective responsibility for their own destruction. But
the central claim of the book, and what makes it original and important,
is the thesis of the banality of evil, which holds that evil is part of the
experience of all human existence. Even though she referred to it only
at the end of the book, Arendt reiterated throughout that Eichmann was
a normal person, frighteningly so, and that he was unable to put himself
in the position of another, had no regrets, and claimed that he was a
victim. This claim has almost never been meaningfully discussed in
Israeli society. For years, Israeli society preferred, due to its own needs
and considerations, to place evil on a different planet, to stress a dichotomous Manichaean world of good and evil and not to view evil (in
which the Nazis deeds represent the epitome) as a diffuse element,
existing on different levels, and refused to acknowledge the existence
of a banal evil. Only in the last two decades have different voices
begun to be heard in Israels public debate.
But it is important to clarify that Arendt did not claim that the
Nazis crimes were banal. On the contrary, they were unprecedented
crimes that humanity had never before faced. What was banal were
the characteristics of the people involved in those terrible crimes.
[T]hey were made of the same cloth as we, they were average
human beings, averagely intelligent, averagely wickedthey had
our faces, wrote, as was quoted, Primo Levi.4
Some scholars claim that the phrase the banality of evil was secondary to Arendts preoccupation with problems of moral issues and
moral judgments, and that she may not have even coined the phrase.
These scholars hold that Arendt wanted to try to reconcile the universal
and the particular, the ideal of humanity and the fact of human particularity and diversity. In this regard, the concept of crimes against humanity was more representative of her main preoccupation.5 It should
be remembered that the term crimes against humanity was first utilized in international law in the 1915 joint declaration of the Allied
PowersGreat Britain, France, and Russiain response to the extermination of the Armenian population in Ottoman Turkey. The term was
formally defined by the Nuremberg charter during the prosecution of
the Nazi war criminals.
With all due caution, I suggest that, when we examine the attitude
toward acts of genocide, we consider adopting the concept of the banality of indifference. The reaction of the multitudes located in the
space between the immolator and the victims is, for the most part, characterized by indifference, conformity, and opportunism. The Jews, too,
in various circumstances, are guilty of this, with several exceptions.
It is beyond the scope of this study to attempt an extensive review of
the very ideas of indifference or denial and of what is banal within
them. The concept of banality is not clearly defined. In one of its
modern meanings, banality connotes a lack of originality; it represents
boredom, tediousness, and the absence of creativity. Banality is the extent
to which the accepted mundane world has infected our feelings, cognitions, and acts, and how it has influenced our values; it means common, ordinary.
In this regard, it is meaningful to mention the concept of ordinary
people as perpetrators of genocide, that normal, everyday people
were the perpetrators. Studies of the personalities of well-known Nazi
leaders from a psychiatric-psychological perspective conclude that one
cannot view their personalities as abnormal. We must avoid surrendering to the conformist rationalization that only particular people are
capable of committing genocide. The rank and file who participated in
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
10
undermine the certitude of the claim that there was, indeed, a genocide. These efforts have succeeded in creating disagreement among
researchers, seeming historical controversies, and claims of lack of
proof. In addition, they created intentional neglect and repression of
the subject and confusion over the events surrounding it.
Czech writer Milan Kundera once wrote that mans struggle against
power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. In this sense, all of
the reasons that justify remembrance of the Holocaust are valid for the
Armenian Genocide as well. Furthermore, the Turkish governments that
ruled after the crimes were committed deny that they ever took place.
The Turks have escaped judgment for their crimes and have been partially successful in their denials, with the direct and indirect assistance
of some of the worlds powers, based on selfish political considerations.13
The continuous denial of the genocide by Turkey after committing such
terrible crimes is as terrible as if Germany had denied its crimes in the
Second World War. The degree of denial by Turkeyabsolute denial
is far greater than, for example, the policy of distorting, denying, and
disguising conducted by Japan regarding its massive crimes against the
Chinese in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan apologized, at least in vague
terms, in 1995. It is also greater than, for example, the policy of not
fully recognizing the genocide committed by the United States against
Native Americans, or of the effects of black slavery, or the semi-recognition of the genocide committed in Australia against the aborigines
after the arrival of the European settlers.
The destruction of the Armenian people in the second and third decades of the twentieth century is an undisputed fact. Forgetfulness and
intentional efforts at denial have resulted, several decades later, in questionsmost of them tendentiouswhich did not exist before. This alone
raises doubts and questions about historical memory, historical consciousness, and historical research, as well as musings about the morality of the world in which we live.
Many scholars agree that the denial of genocide is the final stage of
genocide. Recognition of the Armenian Genocide on the part of the
entire international community, including Turkeyor perhaps, first and
foremost by Turkeyis therefore a requirement of historical, moral,
educational, and political significance of the first order.
The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel is crucial in this
regard, since the denial of the Armenian Genocide is very similar to the
denial of the Holocaust of the Jews. Understanding and remembering
Introduction
11
12
Though the author does not discuss the Armenian Genocide directly, these powerful comments are undoubtedly applicable to the
subject. The Armenian Genocide has often been described as the
forgotten genocide.
We have to realize that the recovery of the Armenians from the ongoing trauma of the genocide depends uponlargelythe worlds recognition of the evil. The genocide refuses to be buried, and denial
does not work. The support of third parties(which is neither part of
the perpetrators nor the victims) is very significant; their support could
help the victims. But unfortunately, when bystanders are forced to take
sides, they sometimes side with the perpetrators. By doing that, I
claim, they also become guilty.
*
Introduction
13
14
by the Israeli Minister of Education in 2000 regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and his promise that the subject
would be taught in Israel.
Chapter 8 examines the media. Because of the importance of the
media as a source of information and awareness, this chapter analyzes
how the Israeli media have dealt with the Armenian Genocide and describes the public debate about the attitude towards the Armenian Genocide by examining four prominent media events.
Chapter 9 confronts the attitudes of Israeli academia toward the Armenian Genocide. It analyzes and explains what, in my view, is one of
the great failures of Israeli intellectuals and academiaa failure that is
more significant than the moral failure of Israels political behavior, as
it concerns intellectual freedom and the responsibility to state the truth.
*
Introduction
15
The author believes that at the heart of these arguments is the debated
claim (or demand) regarding the absolute uniqueness of the Holocaust.
The immediate importance of the Holocaust to its Jewish victims,
claims Chaumont, does not concern its uniqueness, but rather its problematic entrenchment within Jewish history, for it has to remain an
important component in the Jewish historical consciousness. What
would have been changed in the Jewish historical consciousness,
asks Chaumont, if the murder by the National-Socialists had not
been described as unique?
I tend to agree with these reflections, at least in part. Yehuda
Bauer claims that it is important to confront the central issue of
comparisons with other genocides.18 This is, in my view, a significant quest, but not the central one. I ask, rather, what is the essential
16
importance of this quest? What does the knowledge that the Holocaust is unique or unprecedented give us, except historical and scientific significance? Rather, I argue, we have to try to understand
why it happened, from the perspective of preventing something similar
from happening in the future. Nevertheless, I agree with Bauer that
the scholars of the Holocaust [and genocide therefore] need to address the really important question: Why [did it happen]?19
Like in any historical event, there are unique historical factors
and characteristics involved in the Holocaust. These should be applied to the construction of historical observations, conceptual frameworks, and categorical definitions concerning the Holocaust and
the possibility (in my opinion, the need and the obligation) of comparing it to other instances of genocide. This kind of work has enormous significance from a scientific point of view. But then, I argue,
in the category of genocide, we have to ask ourselves what is unique
in any genocide. Each genocide has its unique historical, political,
and legal factors and characteristics, and its moral consequences.
Regarding the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the issues of the intentionality of the perpetrators to exterminate an entire peopleall the
Jews that they could reachracial ideology, and the theoretical conception can be raised. The same is true for the question of how the
terrible crime was committedthe industry of death.
These issues can also be analyzed as three unique historical dimensions: the goal of the Holocaust was unprecedented, the rationalization of the processes of extermination was without parallel,
and the terrible resultsix million dead, more than one million of
them childrenwas unmatched.
I am aware of the fact that various forces in the world, with a variety
of motivessome of them racist and anti-Semitichave tried and will
continue to try to blur the unique nature of the Holocaust. We must
continue to be on guard against this point of view. The phenomenon of
historical, scientific, and popular revisionism with regard to the Holocaust may yet become more acute.
Totally different aspects come to the fore, I believe, in the JewishIsraeli context. Israeli society tends to arrive at conclusions and lessons
from the Holocaust that have an essential Zionist and Jewish meaning
and tend less to reflect on the universal lessons of that terrible experience: the tragedies of the other victims are considered to have only minor
importance. In Israel, as we will show in the next chapter, the Holocaust
Introduction
17
18
Introduction
19
20
Introduction
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
21
Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000). The attitude of the
State of Israel was dealt with briefly in this book and is now the core of the
present book.
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (revised and enlarged edition)
(New York: Viking Press, 1964), p. 252.
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York: Vintage Books, 1989),
pp. 202-203.
Seyea Benhaviv, Arendts Eichmann in Jerusalem, in The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, edited by Dana Villa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), pp. 75-76, 79.
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and
the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).
Israel W. Charny, Genocide and Mass Destruction: Doing Harm to Others as a Missing Dimension in Psychopathology, Psychiatry, 49(2), 1986,
pp. 144-157.
Romeo A. DAllaire, The End of Innocence: Rwanda 1994, in Hard
Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, edited by
Jonathan Moore (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), p. 80. Especially illuminating is the interview with him broadcast on July 3, 2000 on
CBC Radio in Ottawa.
Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthaus Story (New York:
Doubleday and Page, 1918), p. 321.
James G. Harbord, Report to the Secretary of State, October 16, 1919.
Excerpted from International Conciliation CIL (New York: June 1920).
Dickran Kouymjian, The Destruction of Armenian Historical Monuments
as a Continuation of the Turkish Policy of Genocide, in Permanent People
Tribunal, A Crime of Silence; The Armenian Genocide (London: Zed Books,
1985), pp. 173-185; Anoush Hovanessian, Turkey: A Cultural Genocide, in
Studies in Comparative Genocide, edited by Levon Chorbajian and George
Shirinian (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), pp. 147-154.
Raphael Lemkin, unpublished papers, written when Lemkin was lobbying for the acceptance of the UN Genocide Convention at the end of WWII.
Used with permission of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, the
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
The post-World War I Turkish government, during the Armistice Period,
which started in October 1918, did actually investigate the crimes against
humanity committed in the Ottoman Empire during the war, and established a military tribunal in December 1918. Prosecutions did take place
more than forty in Istanbul aloneand three people were hanged. The
prosecutions ended when the Kemalists took control of Istanbul.
Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1992),
p. 1.
Ibid., pp. 7-9.
Michael Berenbaum, The Uniqueness of the Holocaust, in After Tragedy and Triumph: Modern Jewish Thought and American Experience
22
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
1
The Holocaust in Jewish
Identity and Memory
From Auschwitz came, in symbolic terms, two people: a
minority which claims it will never happen again; and a
frightened and anxious majority which claims it will never
happen to us again.Yehuda Elkana, 1998
Jewish history in the post-Holocaust era cannot be understood without an awareness of the profound and lasting influence of the Holocaust. The Second World War and the Holocaust on one hand, and the
establishment of the State of Israel on the other, fundamentally changed
the history of the Jews. The Jewish people experienced its greatest disaster and three years later lived to witness the birth of the Jewish state
and Jewish sovereignty. In spite of the passage of time, Jewish attitudes
toward the Holocaust and its implications remain today a crucial element in contemporary Jewish identity. In many respects, Holocaust
awareness has increased over the years in the consciousness of Jews in
Israel and the Diaspora. It is a central factor today in the attitudes of
young Israeli Jews toward themselves as Jews, Israelis, and Zionists,
and its influence is felt in many other aspects of their lives. The Israeli
educational system also views the Holocaust as a central component of
Jewish and Zionist life, as will be discussed later. Therefore, an understanding of the attitudes of Jews in Israel and abroad toward the Holocaust is essential to understanding their Jewish identity overall. Because of the crucial part the Holocaust plays in Jewish-Israeli identity,
it goes without saying that it is very interesting, even essential, to understand Israels attitude toward other genocides. One would expect
that the trauma of being a victim in a mass-slaughter like the Holocaust
23
24
would reflect on the basic responses of any Jew toward other victims.
But in reality things are very different and, as we will see, more complicated.
Jewish-Israeli Identity
Addressing Jewish-Israeli identity as a single-coherent identity presents numerous difficulties. Practically, it is a fragmented and divided
identity and so is the educational system. It is divided into three sectors: the State secular population, which is the biggest sector, the statereligious sector, and the independent sector, which is identified with
the ultra-orthodox elements in Israeli-Jewish society. This sector has
been growing significantly in the last two decades. The State religious
sector is Zionist, and the independent sector is not Zionist. The division
by sectors of education and by religious tendencies (the two variables
are virtually congruent) reveals meaningful differences with regard to
most aspects of Jewish-Israeli identity. From studies on Jewish identity
in Israel, it emerges that this identity could be examined from four perspectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.
These are not the only aspects that form the structure of Israeli-Jewish identity, but they are the essential ones for an analysis of this identity. It should be emphasized that the identity of a Jewish citizen of
Israel is neither purely Israeli nor purely Jewish; it is a synthesis of
both, and the proportion between one component and the other depends
on the sub-group or sub-identity. For example, the seculars tend to define themselves more as Israelis, while the religious tend to define themselves more as Jews. Likewise, a Jew living in America, for example, is
usually regarded, by himself and by others, as an American-Jew or a
Jewish-American.
The religious tendencies variable emerged as the most significant
factor affecting Jewish-Israeli identity. Its influence is greater than that
of other independent variables, including country of birth, ethnic origin, and so forth. It is possible to speak of four sub-identity models, or
profiles, of the Jewish-Israeli identity:
25
The Holocaust has turned out to be the one meaningful factor shared
by all sub-identity groups in Israeli society. Moreover, today, unlike
in the 1950s and 1960s, it also constitutes a major component of all
sub-identities, despite variations in the specific componential aspects
of attitudes towards the Holocaust.2 Let us demonstrate this by briefly
analyzing some significant attitudes.
The Lessons of the Holocaust
Ideological movements endeavor to learn lessons from historical
events, especially the most important historical events, and usually want
to incorporate them into their historical collective memory in a way
that fits their ideologies.3 There can be no doubt that the Holocaust is
perceived as a watershed event that has had a decisive effect on the
destiny of the Jewish people in the recent past, the present, and has
profound implications for its future. This is how the Zionist movement
and its leaders perceived the Holocaust as it occurred and in the years
that have since passed. The same is true in the Jewish religious world,
both Zionist and non-Zionist.
As a terrible and complex tragedy in the recent history of the Jewish
people, the Holocaust raises many poignant questions. One way to confront such an event is to try to learn lessons from it. Even when the
Israeli educational system did not teach the Holocaust as a subject in
the curriculum, in the first decades (as we will see later) it was deemed
very important to commemorate it and teach its lessons, in order to
prepare students to take their place in Israeli society. Undoubtedly, the
Israeli political and educational systems tried to influence the young
Israelis attitude toward the Holocaust in a Zionist direction. Some would
even go so far as to charge that the Israeli educational systems preoccupation with the Holocaust was intended to serve the needs and interests of the State.
The Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law of August 19, 1953, which defined the function of Yad Vashem as the State
Memorial Authority, is one of the most important laws adopted by the
26
The first two lessons are Zionist in the extreme, going far beyond the
other two. They express the doctrine known as negation of the
Diaspora, or more precisely the negation of Exile (Diaspora is a
chosen situation whereas exile is a forced situation). There are Zionists who see the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of the
failure of the Diaspora. Consequently they preach eliminating the
27
Diaspora with slogans just like the first two above. The lesson that Israel is the safest place for Jews to live is far more moderate and relative than there is no security in the Diaspora, while the fourth lesson
would be accepted by most Jews in the Diaspora, including those who
do not see themselves as Zionist or even pro-Zionist.
The Jewish lessons, not necessarily connected to Israel, include:
1. Jewish solidarity, self-defense, and reliance on ourselves alone are essential; and
2. We must be on our guard for any manifestation of anti-Semitism and fight
it as soon as it appears.
Studies conducted in Israel indicate that few young Israelis see the
most important lesson of the Holocaust as a universal one. We can assume that these Israelis would be more sensitive to other genocides
than the ones leaning towards the Jewish or Zionist lessons, but this
issue was never examined. It was found that young Israelis conclusions regarding the Holocaust lean much more to the Zionist lessons
than to Jewish ones, and even less to universal ones. For the most part,
young Israelis reach Zionist conclusions: the need for the existence of a
strong and sound Jewish state, the lack of security in the Diaspora, that
Israel is the safest place for Jews, and that every Jew in the Diaspora
must immigrate to Israel.6
In this context, it is worth quoting one sentence from In Praise of
Forgetting, a controversial article by Israeli philosopher Yehuda Elkana,
himself a survivor of the Holocaust, which appeared in the Hebrew
daily newspaper Haaretz, (March 2, 1988). Elkana wrote: From
Auschwitz came, in symbolic terms, two peoples: a minority which
claims it will never happen again, and a frightened and anxious majority which claims it will never happen to us again. Between these
two versions, in the tension between particularism and universalism,
fluctuates Israeli society, and the public debate within it. Realizing and
understanding this tension is very significant to our issue in this study.
28
The Israeli writer Boaz Evron, in a sharp criticism, wrote the following in 1983:
Two catastrophes have hurt the Jewish people in the twentieth century: the
Holocaust and the lessons drawn from it. And today, illogical and antihistorical interpretations of the genocide of the Jews are being used, either
deliberately or out of ignorance, as propaganda, in the non-Jewish world,
the Jewish Diaspora, and within Israels own Jewish nation. This propaganda has now become one of the most serious threats to the Jewish people
and the State of Israel.7
The first two contexts, which are much more widespread, can be
seen clearly in the discussions around the laws of the Knesset: the Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Ghetto Rebellion Law of 1951;
the Yad Vashem Law of 1953; and the Memorial Day for the Holocaust
and the Heroism Law of 1959.9
29
The Israeli and Jewish viewpoint obliged Yad Vashem to convey the
heroism and spiritual courage of the Jews to future generations and to
teach the lessons (or practically, the lesson) of the Holocaust, although
there were no definitions of what those lessons might be. The laws had
to formulate the patterns of remembrance for Yom Hashoah (Holocaust
Memorial Day), which would then pass from Israel to the Jewish communities in the Diaspora as well. By law, Yad Vashem had also to grant
all the Jewish victims of the Holocaust Israel memorial citizenship, a
symbolic status created to connect the victims to the State of Israel.
This was a very unusual assignment, laden with emotional and ideological meaning. Yad Vashem was also charged with taking the lead in
cooperating with other Jewish (and perhaps non-Jewish) institutions
that commemorated the victims of the Holocaust and representing Israel on the different international commemoration projects that might
arise. James E. Young, in his comprehensive book The Texture of Memory,
about the Holocaust memorial and its meaning, described the end of the
exhibition in Yad Vashems museum (a new museum is presently being
built).10
In fact, as we exit the last room of the exhibition, the hall of names, we pass
alongside the Baal Shem Tovs [the founder of the Hassidic Movement]
words, gilded in gold lettering, a distillation of this memorials raison dtre
on Israel: Forgetting lengthens the period of exile! In remembrance
lies the secret of deliverance. With these words in mind, we walk outside into the blindingly bright light of Jerusalem, the present moment.
The memorial message [exile] is reinforced further still: That has all
come to this, the museum seems to be saying. That was the galut, where
Jews had no refuge, no defense only death and destruction; this is Israel, its
people alive.
Members of the Knesset who took part in the deliberations about the
laws emphasized certain principles in accordance with their own political inclinations. The presentation of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of IsraelShoah Utekumah (Holocaust and Rebirth)
in the context of cause and effect (Israel was created because of the
Holocaust, thanks to or despite the Holocaust) illuminated the main
agreements and differences between the speakers of the various parties.
The final wording of the laws clearly reflected the wish to minimize
the political rifts among the various parties. The recognition that Israel
30
has to manifest Jewish life and culture was expressed in the general
debate about those laws, a recognition that was decisively expressed by
Haim Ben-Asher, one of the Knesset members: The existence of the
people and the existence of the State (of Israel) are one.
Following the ratification of the Yad Vashem Law (1953), the government set aside a site for the Yad Vashem complex. It was located on
the western side of the Mount of Remembrance (Har Hazikaron, later
renamed Mount Herzlin memory of Theodor Herzel, the founder of
political Zionism and prophet of the modern Jewish State), on which
Herzls tomb had been built in 1950. On the eastern side, a cemetery for
the soldiers who fell in Israels wars was established. The institutions built
on this mountain created an historical focal point for the new nation that
embraced the meaning of Holocaust and rebirth.
In order to make the remembrance of the Holocaust a national observance, the lawmakers in 1951 endeavored to choose a date that would
unite all segments of Israeli society. In settling on the twenty-seventh
day of Nisan, the legislators followed the Jewish tradition and selected
a date according to the Hebrew calendar. April 19, the non-Jewish date
of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was not acceptable.11 Over
the years, other memorial days were added during this period of the month
of Nisan to commemorate all the Jews who had died in pogroms during the
Crusades and during the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland in the seventeenth century. Thus, the selection of the twenty-seventh of Nisan answered
the needs of both the religious and the non-religious. The Knesset accepted
this date unanimously. Since seven days, the traditional period of mourning, or shivah, for Jews, separate the twenty-seventh of Nisan from Israels
Independence Day, the fifth day of Iyyar, the date chosen complemented
the conceptual framework of Shoah Utekumah and Shoah and Heroism.
From the thousands of days during which the Holocaust took place, one
particular day was chosen to commemorate ita day that is connected to
heroism, and particularly to physical heroism. Although there have been
significant changes in the attitudes of Israelis towards the Holocaust over
the years (especially in the meaning of the term heroism), those contexts remain irrefutable.
To demonstrate briefly the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish-Israeli
identity, I have chosen to deal with two more related issues: the prominence of the Holocaust in Jewish-Israeli historical consciousness and
the level of identification of young Israelis with the survivors of the
Holocaust.
31
32
Historical Events that Influenced the Destiny of the Jewish People and Your
Personal Destiny (partial list)
Event
Events that
affected Jewish
Destiny
Events that
affected Personal
Destiny
(in percentage)
Ultra-orthodox
Holocaust
65
72
12
21
23
18
60
48
Holocaust
91
64
69
55
World War II
11
Holocaust
77
51
63
76
36
39
State Secular
State Religious
same order, but to a lesser extent, as events affecting their own destiny.
The ultra-orthodox also mentioned the Holocaust most frequently, but
it scored higher on influencing personal destiny (72 percent) than national destiny (65 percent). The establishment of the State was viewed
as much less important on both levels, and was mentioned less than the
giving of the Torah and the dispersion as events that influenced Jewish
destiny.
This question illustrates also the changes that have taken place since
earlier studies were conducted, when the Holocaust was mentioned much
less frequently. In Faragos 1985 study, 44 percent of the students mentioned the Holocaust as the historical event that affected their destiny
more than any other event. In previous studies conducted by Herman
33
(1965, 1968, 1974) the Holocaust was ranked in most cases as the third
most important event. The establishment of the State and the nearest
Israeli war usually ranked first or second: The War of Independence
occupied second place in 1965; the Six Day War was second in 1968;
and the Yom Kippur War was second in 1974.14 Since the late 1970s and
early 1980s, as we see, the Holocaust has become the most conspicuous event in Jewish history for all three sectors, even more than the
establishment of the State. For the secular and ultra-orthodox, the Holocaust has also become the historical event that most affects the students personally, despite the passage of time that might have been expected to produce a reverse trend.
Whereas earlier studies uncovered the interesting phenomenon of
the growing prominence of the Holocaust in the historical consciousness of young Israelis, this study shows a marked increase in its prominence. The central position occupied today by the Holocaust in Israels
national consciousness probably reflects the effort invested by the Israeli educational system in teaching the Holocaust (which will be discussed later). It seems that there is a transformation of the event into a
central component of Israels civil religion, as well as a tendency to
find in the Holocaust a unifying consensual factor in Israeli society.
Some elements in Israeli society, notably in the secular sector but
also in the State religious sector, believe the Holocaust should be central in the Jewish and Zionist education of the young Israeli. They believe that if the Holocaust is made a central factor in the Israeli national
consciousness and in the Jewish and Zionist education of young Israelis, and if the students are made aware of the relevance of the Holocaust
for them as Israelis, this might reduce the scale of emigration from the
country and the confusion surrounding Zionist education, especially
after the Six Day War and its consequences, which will be discussed
below.
The debates in Israel surrounding the goals of organized youth visits
to Poland are significant in this regard. The Ministry of Education initiated in 1989, after some private initiatives, a program for high school
students that includes a visit to Poland and the extermination camps.
The program has become popular in recent years, and a number of studies
have demonstrated the strong impact these visits have had on students
perception of themselves and their Jewish identity. But there are educators, historians and intellectuals who criticize the strong emotional component of the tours and claim that they are Zionist oriented.
34
35
36
these changes are accompanied by a change in attitudes toward the Jewish people and the history of Diaspora Jewry.
Another significant question should be raised regarding the impact
of the Holocaust on Israeli societyfrom the point of view of Jewish
and Israeli identity, as well as from an educational point of view: is it
possible in the long run to foster an identity on the basis of elements
that are fundamentally negative? The Holocaust represents the ultimate
negative aspects in Jewish history, but we cannot base our identity exclusively on it (and on our wars for survival). What are the positive,
vital contents and values in our heritage? Is not a balance called for in
terms of positive Jewish elements?16
To summarize the actual situation of this issue: points of contact
between all the sub-identities in Jewish-Israeli society are few, if any,
and a solution in the near future appears doubtful. Tensions develop
mainly around two focal points: the relationship between the Jewish
religion and the Jewish nation and its influence on Jewish identity; and
the relationship between Jewishness and Israeliness. The hope and declarations expressed by people from the educational and political establishment during the 1980s and 1990s that Israel will be united by a
common memory of the Holocaust does not function any more. Historians and educators actually speak about privatization of the memory
of the Holocaust. Israeli society has to accept the different groups and
sub-identities that compose it. In the future there will be, no doubt,
different narratives about the Holocaust also inside Israel.
Over the years the Israeli components of identity have been reduced
while the Jewish components have gathered strength. It is not clear,
however, whether a weakened sense of Israeliness underlies the increased
strength of Jewishness, or whether there has been a meaningful change
in attitude towards ourselves as Jews. Does todays young Israeli feel
more Jewish only because he feels less Israeli, or has his Jewishness
been enhanced?
There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that a significant change
has taken place in the attitude of the young Israeli towards the Holocaust. This change, which could already be detected in previous studies, has been strikingly obvious since the 1980s. The Holocaust has
become a major factor in Jewish identity. From this point of view, the
prevailing attitude to the Holocaust indicates a strengthening of Jewish
identity. The Holocaust largely fills the void created by the weakening
of Israeli identity and the trend towards Jewishness. At the same time,
37
38
39
40
caust that developed in Israel, and the Jewish memory that developed
in the organized communities of the Diaspora, were gradually built and
modeled also by the Israeli and Jewish political and educational establishments into collective memories. I define it as the Jewish-Zionist
memory of the Holocaust.
The elements of Jewish-universalistic memory of the Holocaust were
modeled in the margins of the Jewish communities and were often in
conflict with them. Yet, the Jewish universal memory, like the JewishZionist one, usually recognized the uniqueness of the Holocaust but did
not emphasize it. This is not an institutional or doctrinaire remembrance,
but an individual one, with various expressions. The three principal
features of this Jewish pattern of commemoration may be outlined in
three separate contexts: Holocaust-resistance, Holocaust-anti-fascist
struggle, and Holocaust-identification with the victim.19
There is at least one common theme between the building of a Holocaust memory in Israel and the fostering of a Jewish-universal Holocaust memory, and that is the connection between the Holocaust and
heroism. The other two contexts that are widespread in Israelthe
connection between the Holocaust and the rebirth of the State, and the
Holocaust and redemptiondo not form central elements in the Jewish-universal memory of the Holocaust. In the Jewish-universal moral
of the Holocaust, as it developed in the generation of 1968 in France for
example, the focus of identification is on different figures from those
within Israel. At the center stands lAffiche rouge [The Red Poster underground group] and the figure of Marcel Rayman, which are practically unknown in Israel.20
For those who hold the Jewish-universal memory, it is clear that the
Holocaust has additional meanings beyond the specifically Jewish problem. For many of them, the Holocaust embodies the uniqueness of Jewish history, but, unlike the Zionists, they wish to derive universal lessons from it, using it, for example, to justify their war against fascism,
repression, and any injustice.
The Jewish-universal remembrance of the Holocaust carries a moral
command that emphasizes the significance of the activity on behalf of
human rights. It is therefore not surprising that these people play an
important part in the humanitarian institutions striving to protect the
rights of minorities anywhere in the world. They are involved in activities against totalitarian regimes and repression in various places in the
world. Some of them were active, for example against the Soviet occu-
41
42
Furthermore, for the Armenian there is also the painful fact that the
Genocide is unfortunately not recognized. By this denial, the Armenians, in some regards, including cross-generational psychological
trauma, have been victimized twice. There is something depressing,
even despairing, in witnessing the ongoing efforts of the Armenians
and their supporters for eighty-seven years to gain recognition from the
international community for the event whose direct consequence was
their living in Diaspora. I myself have learned about it in Israel for the
past fifteen years, and later on in many other Armenian communities
all over the world.
Notes
1.
See, among others, Yair Auron, Jewish-Israeli Identity (Tel Aviv: Sifriat
Poalim, 1993).
2. Simon Herman, Jewish Identity, A Social Psychological Perspective
(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977); Uri Farago, Jewish Identity of Israeli
Youth, 1965-1985, Yahadut Zemanenu 5 (1989), pp. 259-85; Yeshayahu
(Charles) Liebman, The Holocaust Myth in Israeli Society, Tefutsot Israel 19:5 and 6 (Winter 1981), p.110. (Originally published as Myth,
Tradition, and Values in Israeli Society, Midstream 24:1 [January 1978],
pp. 44-53.)
3. See among others, Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (New York:
Harper & Row, 1980); Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective
Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). For elaboration of these issues regarding the
Holocaust see: Yair Auron, The Pain of Knowing: Reflections on the Teaching of the Holocaust and Genocide (Tel Aviv: The Open University of
Israel, 2003).
4. Ruth Firer, Agents of the Lesson (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1989),
p. 149.
5. Ibid., p. 152. See also p. 106, which deals with the distinction between
lesson and significance.
6. Yair Auron, The Holocaust and the Israeli Teacher, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Vol. 8, No. 2 (1994), pp. 225-259.
7. Boaz Evron, The Holocaust Reinterpreted: An Indictment of Israel, in
Granta (A Literature for Politics), 6, 1983, p.54.
8. Rachel Israeli, The Holocaust and Its Significance to the People of Israel, survey presented to Yad Vashem, November 1999.
9. The following paragraph is based on Dalia Ofer, Israel Reacts to the Holocaust, The World Reacts to the Holocaust, edited by David Wyman (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 861-864.
10. James E. Young, The Texture of Memory, Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 253.
43
11. The Hebrew date of the beginning of the uprisingthe fourteenth day of
Nisanwas not appropriate for commemoration because it was the day
before the festival of Passover. However, the month of Nisan itself was
most suitable. The uprising had lasted more than six weeks, and, according to Jewish tradition, the seven weeks from the first day of Passover
until the holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost) contain a stretch of thirty-three
days of mourning commemorating the persecution of the Jewish sages
and their pupils in the second century.
12. The study sample consisted of 564 students, men, and women from Teacher
Training Colleges all over Israel. See Yair Auron, Jewish-Israeli Identity,
1993.
13. The Holocaust or the Second World War was mentioned by 354 out of the
360 respondents in the secular sector. In aggregate, the Holocaust and the
Second World War were mentioned by all the students who answered the
question. The percentages are based on the total number of answers given.
There were few students who mentioned the Holocaust and the Second
World War separately.
14. See Uri Farago, The Identity of Israeli Youth, p. 274; Simon Herman,
Jewish Identity, p. 84.
15. Liebman, The Holocaust Myth in Israeli Society, pp. 110-111. See also
Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
16. In contrast, there is a perceptible trend towards giving less prominence to
the creation of the State of Israel, and towards a more ambivalent attitude
in comparison to the past to Israeli identity, to the Lebanese war, and
events connected with the State of Israel (for example, the Intifada). This
is true at least with respect to some of the students.
17. Don Handelman and Elihu Katz, State Ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance Day and Independence Day, in Don Handelman, Models and Mirrors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 191-239, 290295.
18. The Jewish fighters at Mount Masada, by the Dead Sea, in the year 73 CE
took their own lives rather than surrender to the Romans. It became a
metaphor for the Zionist movement and later for the State of Israel, surrounded by bitter enemies.
19. One of the groups in which this memory developed was that of the former
Jewish radicals in France in the generation of 1968. On the fascinating
subject of the Jewish radicals in France during the 1960s and 1970s, see
Yair Auron, Les Juifs dExtrme Gauche en Mai 68Une Gnration
Rvolutionnaire Marqu par la Shoa (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998).
20. The Red Poster was the name of a communist underground group, many
of whose members, including Jews, were immigrants. The Red Poster
was, as far as we can tell, the first group to carry out underground activities in Paris against the Germans. The members of the group were caught
at the end of 1943, tried, and condemned to death by the German military
court in Paris, and on February 21, 1944 they were executed. In February
44
2
Denials of the Armenian Genocide
...A bold plan was formulated in my mind. This consisted of
obtaining the ratification [of the UN Genocide Convention]
by Turkey among the first twenty founding nations. I know,
however, that in this consideration both sides will have to
avoid speaking about one thing, although it would be constantly in their minds: the Armenian.Raphael Lemkin,
Totally Unofficial Man
The purpose of this chapter is not to deal in detail with the phenomenon of denial in general, but to introduce an analysis of denial before
studying the attitudes of the State of Israel towards the Armenian Genocide that will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.
In academic discussions, the definitions and uses of specific terms
rarely carry the weight that the term genocide does in our monograph. A large body of literature has been written about the definitions
of genocide, its uses and abuses, sometimes its frivolous uses (similar
uses and misuses occur with the word Holocaust), and there is a wide
range of definitions of genocide by various scholars. I do not intend to
analyze these debates, but rather wish to briefly clarify the use of the
term here.
The definition of the act of genocide is both a legal and a political
question, and has significance for social science classification and research.1 Genocide was first defined in 1944 by the Jewish Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, who lost all his family in the Holocaust. Lemkin
wrote that This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word
genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing). The term genocide was
subsequently codified legally in the aftermath of the horrors and destruc-
45
46
tion of the Holocaust. In 1948 the United Nations enacted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (which
entered into force in 1951), defining genocide as a crime under international law, not only in times of war but also a crime in times of peace.
The Convention defines genocide as follows: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group.
The Convention, however, has not been accepted as the last word on
the definition of genocide. The definition of the crime of genocide has
provoked much scholarly and legal argument. Alternative or complementary terminology, such as democide, politicide, and ethnocide, has
been proposed. Discussion has been focused on a number of main
themes: the types of victim groups to be included (possibly the most
discussed issue); what it means to destroy and the meanings of in
whole and in part; the level of intent required; whether genocide
is committed only by governments; whether there are different types or
levels of genocide; whether genocide must be systematic and sustained
action or can be sporadic; whether the time period is an issue; what
does as such mean?
I just want to note two points: (a) I am convinced that what happened
to the Armenians is genocide according to the United Nations Convention. (b) As mentioned in the Introduction, we have enough evidence to
note that even though the term genocide was codified legally in the
aftermath of the Holocaust, Lemkin was fully aware of the destruction
of the Armenians.
Many observers feel that the Turkish Republic, established in 1923,
is not legally responsible for the genocide of the Armenians; nevertheless that country continues to this day to deny that the Young Turk government of its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, engaged in massive destruction of Armenians from 1915-1917, resulting in the deaths
of over one million men, women, and children. Scholars also argue,
however, that acts of genocide continued under Ataturks Turkey, in the
years 1919-1923, before it became a republic.
47
Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, denial of this genocide by successive
regimes in Turkey has continued from 1915 to the present. Unlike the
Holocaust, which has been denied by various fringe groups and individuals, the Armenian Genocide has been officially denied by Turkish
governments for almost ninety years. Out of political expediency, other
governments, including that of the United States and Israel, have aided and
abetted Turkey in its rewriting of history.
In the period immediately after World War I, the tactic was to find
scapegoats to blame for what was said to be only a security measure
gone awry. This was followed by an attempt to avoid the whole issue,
with silence, diplomatic efforts, and political pressure used where possible.
In the 1960s, efforts were made to influence journalists, teachers,
and public officials by telling the other side of the story. Foreign scholars were encouraged to revise the record of the Genocide, presenting an
account largely blaming the Armenians or, in another version, wartime
conditions. In the 1970s Turkey was successful in its efforts to prevent
any mention of the Genocide in a report of the United Nations (in 1985
a sub-commission of the U.N. did acknowledge the Armenian Genocide), and in the 1980s and 1990s, in pressuring the Reagan, Bush, and
Clinton administrations to defeat Congressional resolutions that would
have authorized a National Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide in the United States. The Turkish government has also attempted
to exclude any mention of the Genocide in textbooks and to prevent its
inclusion in Holocaust and human rights curricula.
The Turkish government has attempted to disrupt academic conferences and public discussions of the genocide, notably a conference in
Tel Aviv in 1982, with demands backed up with threats to the safety of
Jews in Turkey, which we will discuss in detail later. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council reported similar threats over plans to include
references to the Armenian Genocide within the interpretive framework
of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Since the 1980s, the Turkish government has supported the establishment of institutes affiliated with respected universities, whose
apparent purpose is to further research on Turkish history and culture,
but which also tend to act in ways that further denial. The volume and
extent of these activities have been described by one scholar as an
industry of denial and by another one as an industry of denialism.2
48
In the last couple of decades, many studies have been written about
the phenomenon of denial of genocide in general. Much has been written about the denial of the Holocaust, and there is also a substantial
literature on denial of the Armenian Genocide.3
As of today we have witnessed the denials of the Jewish Holocaust,
as well as the genocides of other non-Jewish peoples during World War
II, the Armenian Genocide, the genocides of the Native Americans and
the Australian aborigines, and even recent genocides, such as the ones
committed in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor. Furthermore, the phenomenon of historical revisionism has been applied to
some of the genocides including the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.4
Denial of genocide may reflect a variety of motives. There are of
course universal reasons or explanations for such denials: the acts of
genocide are so terrible, that it is difficult for people to believe that
human beings have really committed them. Primo Levi, a survivor of
the Holocaust, relates that people in the concentration camps were anxious that if they survived people would not believe their stories. His last
book, The Drowned and the Saved, centers on the collective memory of
the Holocaust as a whole and around the victims point of view, in particular. He quotes Simon Wiesenthal in the last pages of The Murderers
Are Among Us, where he describes the SS militiamen cynically enjoying admonishing the prisoners:
However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you
will be left to bear witness, but even if someone were to survive, the world
will not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research
by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the
evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and
some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too
monstrous to be believed: they will say that they are the exaggeration of
Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not
you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers [concentration
camps].5
49
imprisonment, varied in its detail but uniform in its substance: they had
returned and with passion and relief were describing their past sufferings,
addressing themselves to a loved one, and were not believed, indeed were
not even listened to. In the most typical (and cruelest) form, the interlocutor turned and left in silence.6
50
ity. Many of them feel a collective guiltthe mirror image of the collective labeling of the victims that defines genocideand often rewrite
history to reduce the pain of guilt for what happened.
Even to listen to first-person accounts of genocide is unbearably painful. Therapists who have been trained professionally to listen to human
misery often cannot bear to hear the sickening recollections of those
involved in genocide, or those of the survivors: If paid professionals
can not stand it, who can blame the lay public for refusing to listen?
writes Diamond.10
Diamond proposes to consider the reactions of Robert Jay Lifton,
an American psychiatrist who interviewed survivors of the Hiroshima
A-bomb and had much experience with survivors of extreme situations:
...now, instead of dealing with the atomic bomb problem, I was confronted
with the brutal details of actual experiences of human beings who sat before me. I found that the completion of each of these early interviews left
me profoundly shocked and emotionally spent. But very soonwithin a
few days, in factI noticed that my reactions were changing. I was listening to descriptions of the same horrors, but their effect upon me lessened.
The experience was an unforgettable demonstration of the psychic closing off we shall see to be characteristic of all aspects of atomic bomb
exposure
Denial behavior is more widespread than we are ready to admit, in individual life as well as in collective life, and sometimes it is, as we will
see, innocent denial.
Interesting examples can be found in the book by Amos Funkenstein
and Adin Steinsaltz, Sociology of Ignorance and the book States of
Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering by Stanley Cohen.11
The sociology of ignorance, they claim, is not the opposite mirror of
the sociology of knowledge. The authors do not refer to a temporary or
accidental situation of non-knowing, but to ignorance caused by a society, and reserved by the society and its institutions purposely.
There are, of course, also specific motives for denial. The perpetrators of past genocides try by denial to be absolved from responsibility
for their actions. Another motive for denying (by third parties) that a
case of mass killing constitutes genocide is to avoid responsibility for
stopping the action. Thus, the Clinton administration resisted labeling
the Rwandan genocide as genocide from April to October 1994 in
51
52
53
54
Here material rewards are important, but more so, the opportunity for
certain psychological and social satisfactions: a sense of importance,
of status, of being in controlall of which can come through identification with power. The price to be paid for subordinating intellect to
the service of denial, however, is a particular conception of knowledge,
one in which knowledge not only serves the ends of those in power, but
is defined by power. To define truth in terms of power, however, as the
authors argue, is to reveal the bankruptcy, irrationality, and above all,
danger of the whole enterprise of denial of genocide. Inherent in such a
view of knowledge is both a deep-seated nihilism and an urge to tyranny. These comments and reflections will be relevant later in chapter
9, when we will analyze the attitude of the Israeli academy toward the
Armenian Genocide.
After these brief comments about denials of genocides in general,
we will now look at the denials of the Armenian Genocide in particular.
Richard Hovannisian analyzes the methodology, the mechanism, and
the strategy of denial and surveys the shifting patterns of denial of the
Armenian Genocide from one of absolute denial to more sophisticated
approaches of rationalization, relativization, and trivialization. Where
stubborn denial was unconvincing, the negationists hope to use rationalization and relativization to make their case more persuasive and
acceptable. Hovannisian, who also compares deniers and relativizers
of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, finds that these same
approaches are now being used in the case of Holocaust denial as well.
Trivialization, or banalization, is the latest head of the hydra, as it does
not deny mass destruction and killing but tries to put it into the context
of continuous violence in the twentieth century. According to
Hovannisian, the trivialization that emerged in Germany in the 1980s
from the Historians Debate about the historiosophy of Nazism and
the Holocaust has strengthened the tendency of some Holocaust scholars to downplay other genocides of the twentieth century, including the
Armenian Genocide, as a way of responding to the inherent dangers of
the trivialization. Yet, he believes that there are some signs of hope, as
more and more scholars of the Holocaust and human rights activists
come to recognize that success in denying the Armenian Genocide will
open the doors wider to denial, rationalization, and trivialization of all
crimes against humanity.21 In another article, Denial of the Armenian
Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust Denial, Hovannisian claims
that even if deniers and rationalizers of the Armenian Genocide and of
55
the Holocaust may not be acquainted with one another and may not
even have read each others publications, there are striking similarities
in their methodologies and objectives.22 In the Armenian case, denial is
far more advanced and has gained a foothold in the mainstream of the
historical profession. Nevertheless, in time the strategy has changed
from one of absolute negation of intentional mass killing to that of
rationalization, relativization, and trivialization. These forms of denial
are intended to create doubts and cloak disinformation by appealing to
a sense of fair play and of lending an ear to the other side of a misunderstood and misrepresented issue. Prejudice and stereotyping, the deniers maintain, are residues of historical scapegoating or wartime propaganda and the machinations of the alleged victims to enrich themselves
personally and collectively at the expense of others.
Hovannisian concludes that this comparative analysis shows that the
strategies of negators, rationalizers, relativizers, and trivializers of the
Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust have crossed many common
thresholds. Denial of the Armenian Genocide has penetrated far deeper
within academic and political circles than has rejection of the truth of
the Holocaust, but the arguments used are nonetheless the same. These
include the assertions that the alleged genocides were actually invented as wartime propaganda; that the presumed victims were mainly
provocateurs and enemy collaborators; that legitimate preventive measures are taken by all governments; that there never was the intent to
victimize either group; that the numbers of dead have been grossly exaggerated and are in fact not out of proportion with the overall wartime
casualties; that the postwar trials of indicted organizers of the genocides were rigged and meant to gain vengeance against the defeated
powers; that a definite connection existed between the supposed victim
groups and Russia or the Soviet Union, so the attempts to exploit the
genocide issue were really aimed at destabilizing the NATO alliance
and countries aligned with the free world; and that the very fundamental principle of academic freedomthe right to unfettered investigation and expressionis at stake and requires an active defense against
those who cannot tolerate the view that there are two sides to every story.
The ongoing, concerted campaign of repudiation of the Armenian
Genocide, claims Hovannisian, may be taken as a preview of things to
come regarding remembrance of the Holocaust. This lesson has begun
to be heeded by Holocaust scholars and human rights activists. Although
an initial reaction of some scholars and public figures to trivialization
56
of the Holocaust was to set apart and even diminish the scope of the
Armenian Genocide, this trend seems to be changing, and concerned
researchers and writers about both crimes are being drawn together by
the common threat posed by the four-headed hydra of negation, rationalization, relativization, and trivialization. The underlying motives of
all these aspects of denial are deep-seated and range from historic prejudices to current political agendas. In the face of this ugly reality, emphasizes Hovannisian, it is incumbent on people of good conscience to
unite in combating bigotry and upholding the precept that academic
freedom does not mean lack of academic integrity.23
Roger Smith analyzes the special characteristics of the denials of the
Armenian Genocide, emphasizing the role that the Turkish government
plays in it. He writes that, in general, those who initiate or otherwise
participate in genocide typically deny that the events took place, that
they bear any responsibility for the destruction, or that the term genocide is applicable to what occurred. But denial can enter into the very
fabric of a society, so that those who come after sustain and even intensify the denial begun by perpetrators. The most strident and elaborate
denial of genocide in history follows this pattern.
The basic argument of denial has remained the same: it never happened; Turkey is not responsible; the term genocide does not apply.
The current emphasis is on the last argumentremoving the label genocide from the Armenian experience. This is done, in part, by describing the genocide as a civil war within a global war. Paradoxically, this
approach attempts to deny the Armenian Genocide also by acknowledging the Holocaust. In part, this involves the claim that Turkey saved
many Jews from the Nazis, the unstated premise being that a people
who did such acts of kindness could not have killed a million Armenians. It also attempts to exploit the uniqueness of the Holocaust argument to discredit the 1915 genocide; from this perspective, the Holocaust is the only example of genocide. Moreover, Turkey has also gone
to extraordinary lengths, including threats and disruption of academic
conferences, to prevent Jews form learning about the Armenian Genocide. It is important for Turkey to stifle awareness among Jews, because for victims of Nazism to state publicly that Armenians and Jews
have both been subjected to genocide carries a kind of moral persuasiveness that non-victims may lack, writes Smith. During our study, we
will see how these arguments are raised from the Jewish and Israeli
perspectives.
57
58
2.
Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification (Cambridge,
MA and Toronto: Zoryan Institute, 1999), p. 1; Taner Akam, Dialogue Across an International Divide: Essays Towards a Turkish-Armenian Dialogue (Cambridge, MA and Toronto: The Zoryan Institute,
2001), p. 10.
3. There is a substantial literature on denial of the Armenian Genocide. See,
among others, Rouben Adalian, The Armenian Genocide: Revisionism
and Denial, in Genocide in Our Time: An Annotated Bibliography with
Analytical Introductions, edited by Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor
Wallimann (Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1992), ch. 5; Marjorie Housepian
Dobkin, What Genocide? What Holocaust? News from Turkey, 19151923: A Case Study, in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, edited by
Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers,
1986), ch. 5; Richard G. Hovannisian, The Armenian Genocide and Patterns of Denial, in ibid., ch. 6; Clive Foss, The Turkish View of Armenian History: A Vanishing Nation, in The Armenian Genocide: History,
Politics, Ethics, edited by Richard Hovannisian (New York: St. Marins
Press, 1992), ch. 11; Vahakn N. Dadrian, Ottoman Archives and Denial
of the Armenian Genocide in The Armenian Genocide, edited by
Hovannisian, ch. 12; Vigen Guroian, The Politics and Morality of Genocide, in The Armenian Genocide, edited by Hovannisian, ch. 13; Roger
W. Smith, Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and Its Implications, Armenian Review 42, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 1-38; idem, Denial of
the Armenian Genocide, edited by Israel W. Charny, Genocide, vol. 2
(New York: Facts On File, 1991), ch. 3; and The Armenian Genocide:
Memory, Politics, and the Future, in The Armenian Genocide, edited by
Hovannisian, ch. 1. See also the wide-ranging discussion by Israel W.
Charny, The Psychology of Denial of Known Genocides, in Charny,
Genocide Vol. 2., ch. 1; Israel W. Charny, Daphna Fromer, Denying the
Armenian Genocide: Patterns of Thinking as Defence-Mechanism, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 32 No 1, 1998, pp. 39-49.
4. Historical revisionism is historical research that mandates rethinking and
rewriting the understanding of specific historical events as more material
and interpretations become available. However, historical revisionism
regarding the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide wants intentionally to
raise doubts and questions in the unsuspecting, the fair-minded, and those
whose knowledge of the facts is limited.
5. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York: Vintage Books, 1989),
pp. 11-12.
6. Ibid., p. 12.
7. Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee (New York: Harper Perennial,
1992), p. 277.
8. Ibid., p. 298.
9. Ibid., p. 299.
10. Ibid., pp. 305-306.
59
11. Amos Funkenstein and Adin Steinsaltz, Sociology of Ignorance (Tel Aviv:
The Broadcast University, Ministry of Defence, 1987); Stanley Cohen,
States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2001). I read this important book only after my own book
went to press.
12. Douglas Jehl, Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killing Genocide,
New York Times, June 10, 1995.
13. Israel W. Charny, Innocent Denials of Known Genocide: A Further Contribution to the Psychology of Denial of Genocide, Human Rights Review, 1 (3), 2000, pp. 15-39.
14. Israel W. Charny, (1991). The Psychology of Denial of Known Genocides, in Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. Volume 2, edited by
Israel W. Charney (New York: Facts on File, 1991), pp. 3-37; Idem, Commonality in Denial: Classifying the Final Stage of the Genocide Process,
International Network on Holocaust and Genocide, 11(5), 1997, pp. 4-7.
15. Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen, and Robert Jay Lifton, Professional
Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 9(1), 1995, pp. 1-22.
16. Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology
of Genocide (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986).
17. Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen, and Robert Jay Lifton, (1995) op.cit.
18. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the
Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 57.
19. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory (New York: Free Press, 1993), p. 206.
20. Israel W. Charny and Daphna Former, Denying the Armenian Genocide:
Patterns of Thinking as Defence Mechanisms, Patterns of Prejudice,
32(1), 1998, pp. 39-49.
21. Richard Hovannisian, Lhydra quatre ttes du ngationnism: ngation,
rationalisation, relativisation, banalisation, lActualit du Gnocide des
Armniens (Paris: Edipol, 1999), pp. 143-176.
22. Richard Hovannisian, Denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison
with Holocaust Denial, in Remembrance and Denial, edited by Richard
Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), pp. 201-236.
23. Ibid., pp. 230-231.
24. Roger W. Smith, Denial of the Armenian Genocide, in Genocide: A
Critical Bibliographic Review, Volume 2, edited by Israel W. Charny (1991),
pp. 63-85, as well as other articles of the same author mentioned in note 1
of this chapter.
3
Israel-Turkey Relations
I think that our attitude toward such a dreadful historical
event [the Armenian Genocide] cannot be dictated by our
friendly relations with Turkey, even though this relationship is particularly important to me as one who worked
so hard to develop it.Israeli Minister of Justice, Yossi
Beilin, April 2000
61
62
defined, at least not at the beginning, as active denial or direct denial. Nonetheless, the behavior of the State of Israel since the end of
the 1970s and the early 1980s did become an active denial in one way
or another.
No doubt, the geopolitical considerations of Israel have to be noted.
One might argue that they have to be given greater weight. One can
surely appreciate that Israel stands between a variety of rocks and a
hard place. The need to generate allies is great. Turkey, as a secular
Muslim, highly militarized state, permits a certain latitude towards Israel with respect to countering fundamentalist ambitions to annihilate
Israel as a sovereign entityand even its population of Jews.
In order to understand the pragmatic raison dtat and realpolitik
considerations that have influenced the Israeli attitude toward the Armenian Genocide, a brief overview of Israel-Turkey relations is needed.
However, it is beyond the scope of this survey to go into Israel-Turkey
relations in depth.3
Turkey and Israel have, since the 1990s, forged an unlikely alliance
that baffles many observers of the region. On the face of it, there would
seem to be little historical or contemporary logic to a close relationship
between the two; one is the well-established successor of a vast and
long-lived empire; the other an embattled state whose boundaries and
very existence are constantly challenged by neighbors; one is Muslim,
the other Jewish; Turkey is just emerging from what is considered Third
World status and aspiring to join the European Union, while Israel is
thoroughly modernized and well entrenched in Western culture; Turkey is notoriously deficient with regard to international norms of human rights and the rule of law, while Israel is a liberal democracy (with
its internal deep tensions between being a democracy and a Jewish state);
Turkey is highly influenced by its military, while Israel is civilian in its
demeanor; one is large in size and population, the other comparatively
tiny.
The origins of this momentous shift may be found in a triad of new
contingencies: the end of the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War of 1991,
and technological development in Israel. The new configuration of regional and global forces unleashed by these three contingencies has
enabled Turkey and Israel to pursue a partnership in military and civil,
strategic and economic, institutional and human affairsa close relationship founded on shared interests that has the potential to develop
into an intimate and lasting rapport.
Israel-Turkey Relations
63
The Background
The amazing development of bilateral relations between Turkey and
Israel in the 1990s stands out against the backdrop of the tenuous
connection between the two countries during the preceding forty
years. Turkey recognized Israel upon its establishment in 1948, and
in the following year, diplomatic relations began at the level of legation, meaning that ministers, not ambassadors, were exchanged. However, in November 1980, when the Knessets passage of the Jerusalem
Law (which legislated the unification of the city of Jerusalem, including the east side, as part of Israel) caused outrage throughout the
Islamic world, Turkey recalled its minister and downgraded relations to the level of second secretary, one step short of breaking off
diplomatic ties completely. The Turkish consulate general in Jerusalem was closed, allegedly under the pressure of Erbakans Islamist
party. Turkish Airlines and Turkish Maritime Lines ceased transport
between Turkey and Israel. It was not until 1986 that relations were
informally restored to the ministerial level. Relations between Turkey and Israel began to improve dramatically after the Gulf War and
the announcement of the international Madrid peace conference in
1991, which dealt with the peace process between Israel and the
Arab countries. The two nations exchanged ambassadors in November 1991.
There is a certain irony of history in the fact that from the 1950s
through the 1980s, when Israel was isolated and desperately sought an
alliance with outer ring states (including Iran and Ethiopia), Ankara
shunned the Israelis, whereas in the 1990s, when Israel was actively
pursuing peace, breaking up the siege that had enclosed it, and opening
its doors to representatives from many nations, Turkey should be so
eager and forthcoming.
As a Muslim country and a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Turkey has always had to walk a tightrope between
its interest in maintaining a relationship with Israel and its cultural,
economic, historical, and emotional commitment to Islam (despite the
fact that Turkey vociferously holds itself out to the West as a strictly
secular state). For most of the period preceding the Turkish-Israeli rapprochement, Ankara tilted toward its Islamic neighbors. However, the
worldwide process of globalization and sustained development that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf War drew
64
Jerusalem and Ankara closer together. Many Arab and Islamic countries and societies, however, opposed such all-encompassing changes
and distanced themselves from their Turkish ally.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of
Azerbaijan in 1991 and the five republics of Central Asia, Turkey looked
eastwards and appeared to entertain its old pan-Turanist dreams. Nevertheless, Turkey understands that in doing so, it risks abandonment by
Europe. This is precisely where Turkish interests coincide with those of
Israel. Turkey recognizes the value of Israels cooperation in shaping
the future of Central Asia.
Furthermore, Turkey, as many other countries, saw Israel as an important conduit to the only remaining superpower, the United States. In
short, the road to Washington leads through Jerusalem. This belief derives in part from the fact that Israel enjoys a privileged and intimate
relationship with the United States, and in part from the idea of Americas
redoubtable and omnipotent Jewish lobby. Turkish analysts often
complain that Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians use their respective lobbies in America to pursue their political causes. The conclusion
therefore was: We have nobody but Israel...and the Jewish Lobby to
depend on for support. (Later on we will see how the Jewish lobby is
involved in the debate over the Armenian issue in the U.S.). Thus, it
was in Turkeys national interest to collaborate with Israel, believing
that it could relieve Turkish isolation and balance the Greek and Armenian lobbies in American politics.4
The Turkish-Israeli Alliance
There are numerous elements in the Turkish-Israel alliance, each of
them complex and deserving of in-depth treatment. It is beyond the
scope of our survey, however, to do more than identify them as factors
affecting Israels response to the Armenian Genocide. These factors
include the following:
1. The Jewish community in Turkey;
2. The provision of water, gas, and oil to Israel by Turkey;
3. Turkey as a military ally against Syria, Iraq, and Iran, with whom Turkey
does not maintain cordial relations;
4. U.S. policy towards Russia and Turkeys role in that policy;
5. U.S. policy in the Middle East, especially regarding oil, and Turkey and
Israels role in that policy.
Israel-Turkey Relations
65
66
time between Israel and Syria as a sign that Israel would always subordinate Turkeys strategic interests to its own. Israels explanations to
the effect that it could maintain its growing relationship with Turkey
even as it evoked the Armenian massacre (just as it does with Germany
despite recurrent references to the Shoah) fell on deaf ears in Ankara.
For, unlike Germany, which has recognized its past and accepted its
responsibility, Turkey continues to treat the Armenian Genocide as a
taboo and does not acknowledge any guilt.6
No doubt, the dilemma of morality versus policy is at the core of the
issue. The close relations between Israel and Turkey are based upon the
mutual interests of the two countries. The question is whether Israel
erred in the Armenian issue in the early stages of its relations with
Turkey. In the 1970s and 1980s, the rationale of the Israeli government
as to why it should yield to Turkish pressure was that it is important to
keep relations with the only Muslim country willing to do so. More important (and mysterious) was the claim regarding Jewish interests: it was explained by Israeli officials that supporting the Armenian issue could endanger the lives of Jews in Turkey, as well as in some other countries (saving
Jews from Syria was once mentioned, as was saving Jews from Iran).
This was sometimes described as a vital interest.
We do not presume to judge if these issues are really in the vital
interest of Israel or the Jews. Suppose, however, the pretext of vital
interest was not used. What would Turkish-Israeli relations look like
if Israel had explained from the beginning that the memory of genocideany genocideis not a negotiable issue in the relations between
two sovereign states, especially when one of them is the country of the
survivors of the Holocaust? What would have happened if Israel had
explained to Turkey that what our children learn in school and what we
see on our televisions is our own internal concern?
I am aware of the fact that in my view Israelis are held to a higher
standard than other nations on the Armenian (and related) question.
The question arises: should Israel be held to a higher standard than other
countries? I think it should, and I think that doing so is appropriate because
it is, in my view, the legacy of the Holocaust and the Jewish legacy.
Israel-Turkey Relations and Armenian Political Weakness
The Armenian issue has been, from the outset, one marked by political weakness. After the Genocide, the Armenians continued their struggle
Israel-Turkey Relations
67
68
the academic and intellectual world. Despite the abundance of publications and the mass of evidence from the war years and the 1920s, the
memory of the Armenian Genocide has gradually dimmed over the years.
The Armenians were caught up in a struggle to survive and to rebuild
their individual and communal life; some underwent a process of acculturation, assimilating into the five continents to which they were dispersed after they were expelled from their homeland. After the Second
World War the world was stunned and absorbed by the horrors of the Holocaust. There are some Armenians who assert that interest in the Holocaust
was at the expense of the Armenian tragedy, which became the forgotten
genocide. In this case, the Western world, in my view, slightly embarrassed by its abandonment of the Armenians, and the indifferent world
preferred, and continues to prefer, to ignore their fate, and within international realpolitik, the Armenians were utterly powerless.
The Armenian Community in Israel
In the Armenian Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem there is an Armenian community that has lived there for centuries. Even though this
community has always been small, it has special significance to Armenians all over the world because of the holiness of Jerusalem and the
magnificent Armenian church there.7
While the Jewish community in Palestine shrank during the World
War I years, as did the Christian and Muslim communities, the number
of Armenians grew significantly with the arrival of the refugees from
the Genocide during the war and after it. In addition to Jerusalem, they
settled in Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, and a few families in some villages in the
Galilee. An Armenian village composed of survivors of the genocide
was established close to Athlit, near Haifa, after World War I and existed until the late 1970s.
The little Armenian community in the State of Israel, after its creation in 1948, numbered around 1,000 people. They commemorate their
Memorial Day privately inside their communities, usually in the Armenian clubs of Haifa and Jaffa. The 1965 Memorial Day, when the Armenians in Israel, and in other countries as well, decided to commemorate
the fiftieth anniversary of their genocide, was the first public ceremony
regarding the genocide. There was a gathering of the Armenians from
all over the country in Jaffa. After the Six Day War in 1967, the Armenians of Israel established ties with the Armenians of the West Bank,
Israel-Turkey Relations
69
especially the organized community of Jerusalem. Since 1972, the Armenians in Israel commemorate their Memorial Day together in the
Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. The processes of reconstruction of the
memory of the Armenian Genocide in the Armenian Quarter in the Old
City of Jerusalem were painful, complicated, and gradual.8
Nowadays, the small Armenian community in Israel of around 3,000
members, divided between citizens of Israel and Armenians living in
East Jerusalem and the West Bank, has very little political power. The
Armenians of East Jerusalem live amongst the mosaic of different communities, and their future is uncertain if a political agreement between
the Israelis and the Palestinians is implementedwho will control the
Armenian Quarter?
During the 1950s and 1960s, Israeli officials avoided participating
in the Armenian Memorial Days, claiming that it is commemorated
privately inside the community. But once the commemorations became public, this avoidance ceased to be an innocent avoidance and
became one with political and moral significance. Different ministries
avoided participation (for exceptions see note 1 at the end of this chapter), claiming that it is the responsibility of another ministrythe Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Religions, or the Office of the Prime
Minister. In considerations of realpolitik, the small Armenian community, its tragedy, and its memory have no weight.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
70
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
4
Genocide and Israeli Politics
You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.
Leviticus 19:16
The ancient Greek philosophers did not distinguish between morality and politics. This distinction characterizes the thinkers of the beginning of modern philosophy, like Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, Thomas
Hobbes, and Nicholas Machiavelli, whereas the liberal philosophers
tried to combine, in one way or another, politics and morality.
Acts of genocide can occur in certain circumstances. One of these
circumstances is the clear power superiority of the perpetrator over his
victim. But this superiority depends, to a large extent, on the behavior
of the third party. The third party is the overwhelming majority of
humanity who is not involved in the action. The third party can be divided into three sub-groups: a) those who support the perpetratorhe
is powerful, and because of considerations of political self-interest,
it is good to have contacts with him; b) those who support the
victimfor example, those who tried to help the Jews during the
Holocaust because of moral values and risked their lives in doing it
(defined in Israel as the Righteous); this group is always a small
minority; and c) the bystanders. The necessary (but of course, not
the only) condition for destruction is that other forcesespecially
forces identified with great political, military, and economic power
do not come between the murderer and his victim. Most of the people,
most of humanity, that are not involved in the genocide directly belong
to the latter group: the bystander, the indifferent, and those who remain
silent. Bystanders inform us of the human potential for passivity in face
of evil.
71
72
73
fied by the State of Israel. On March 29, 1950, the Knesset adopted the
Law on Genocide, following the U.N. Convention, but demanding more
severe punishment. This law, which was the first international agreement adopted in Israel, was described by the first Israeli minister of
justice, Pinhas Rosen, when he presented it before the Knesset in December 1949, as the first law brought to the Knesset as a result of Israel
becoming an equal member in the society of nations and its institutions. The Israeli Law on Genocide manifested Israels desire to cooperate with the U.N. and contribute to the achievement of the important
aims for which the U.N. was created. It is significant to note that the
discussions in the Knesset on the law regarding genocide preceded even
discussions that dealt with forming the patterns of the memory and
commemoration of the Holocaust, such as the law of Yad Vashem
(The Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority), or the
law regarding The Memorial Day for the Holocaust and Heroism, which
were approved in 1953 (see above, chapter1). Members of the Knesset
criticized the unclear aspects of the U.N. Convention but emphasized
the importance and significance of the fact that Israel would accept this
special law on genocide and ratify the U.N. Convention. The educational significance of the law and the convention, the need to teach it in
schools, and the importance of education as a factor to prevent crimes
of genocide in the future were also raised in the discussions.
Long discussions were held in the Knesset about the punishment of
those accused of perpetrating genocide. Finally, it was decided that the
punishment for those who are guilty of the crime of genocide would be
death (except under special circumstances). It was also decided that a
person who committed a crime of genocide outside of Israel could be
judged in Israel.
The decisions to ratify to U.N. Convention and to adopt the Israeli
Law on Genocide were accepted unanimously by the Knesset.
The Israeli law distinguishes the definitions for crimes against the
Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Related to
these is the 1950 Law for the Punishment of Nazis and Nazi Collaborators. For instance, Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the
Final Solution, who was captured in Argentina and brought to Israel to
be tried under the 1950 Law for the Punishment of Nazis and Nazi
Collaborators, was accused of four categories of crimes: (a) crimes
against the Jewish people, (b) crimes against humanity, (c) war crimes,
and (d) participation in a hostile organization. In April 1961 Eichmanns
74
75
mitted in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991. This Tribunal tried offenders for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of
1949, violations of the laws and customs of war, genocide, and crimes
against humanity. It has brought many indictments against suspected
criminals, and has begun to try cases at its headquarters in The Hague.
A similar Ad Hoc Tribunal was set up by the Security Council in 1994
to try cases against suspected criminals of genocide and other major
human rights violations that occurred during the civil war in Rwanda.
Since 1993, the U.N. General Assembly has made steady progress
toward establishing a permanent International Criminal Court. In 1994,
the Sixth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly approved a Draft
Statute for this Court. A Preparatory Committee on the Establishment
of an International Criminal Court met in New York with the mandate
to review the draft convention and suggest alternate language to be considered by a Conference of Plenipotentiaries. The Preparatory Committee called for a Conference of Plenipotentiaries in June 1998 in
order to adopt a treaty for establishing an International Criminal Court.
The Conference of Plenipotentiaries concluded on July 17, 1998,
after a month-long meeting in Rome, with the adoption of the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Statute gives the Court
jurisdiction over individuals who committed the crime of genocide, as
defined in the Genocide Convention, crimes against humanity, war
crimes, and aggression (if the parties signed to the treaty are able to
agree upon a definition of aggression). Unfortunately, the Statute limits
the Courts jurisdiction by requiring that either the case be referred to
the Court by the U.N. Security Council, or that the state of nationality
of the accused or the state where the crime took place be a party to the
treaty. This means that if genocide or other serious crimes are committed within a state not a party to the treaty by a leader of that state, the
perpetrator cannot be held accountable by the international community, even if he travels outside his country, unless the case is referred to
the Court by the Security Council. Referrals by the Security Council
have the constraint that they will be subject to the veto power of the
Councils five permanent members. The Statute also provides a loophole for states to opt out of the Courts jurisdiction for war crimes for a
period of seven years.
The Court was to be established when the Statute creating it was
ratified by sixty states. This happened in April 2002, earlier than estimated. The Court began functioning in July 2002. Only crimes com-
76
mitted after the Statute entered into force will fall within the Courts
jurisdiction. Despite its shortcomings, the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court promises to be an important step forward for humanity. The establishment of the ICC symbolizes and embodies the values of justice, human rights, and human solidarity, and is
considered by many as one of the most important institutes in the modern eraa new phase in the history of international criminal justice.
Israeli and Jewish jurists were involved for decades in the efforts to
establish this Court. It is therefore surprising to view the Israeli attitude
toward the final stage of its establishment. Israel (under the right-wing
Netanyahu government) was one of the few countries in the Rome Conference, in July 1998, that voted against the statute. This was mainly
due to a paragraph regarding the settlements Israel had built in the territories occupied by it in 1967, even though they were not named. This
paragraph, which was introduced into the statute following the initiative of the Arab states, claims that direct or indirect transfer of a population from an occupant country to an occupied territory is a war crime.
It should be mentioned that the U.S. also voted against the statute, fearing that because of political considerations, the ICC might act against
American soldiers or leaders, because of their involvement in military
activities around the world. Libya, Iraq, Algeria, Pakistan, China, and
Turkey also did not vote to approve it. One hundred and thirty-nine
countries, up to December 31, 2000, have signed the Statute, among
them all the Western countries, as well as Syria, Egypt, and Jordan.
These countries are considered the founding members of the ICC.
In the internal debate inside Israel after the Rome Conference in
1998, the minister of justice in the Barak Labor government, Yossi Beilin,
strongly encouraged signing the statute, and was joined later by the
foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami. The army and the judicial system,
including the attorney general, were against signing. The main argument for signing was that Israel, considering the history of the Jewish
people and the fact that it was created after the Holocaust, cannot align
itself with countries like China, Iraq, or Libya, which are notorious for
their bad record of human rights violations.
What eventually brought Israel to finally sign the Statute was the
fact that President Clinton decided to sign it, ignoring the objection of
the Pentagon and the Republican majority in the Senate. The signature
of the U.S. had to receive the approval of the Senate and the chance for
approval was low. Clinton explained his decision both as an interna-
77
78
U.N., and the breaking off of diplomatic relations with Israel by many
countries, especially during the 1970s.
In the 1950s the attitude of a light unto the nations prevailed and
was part of the ethos of the new state. Between the 1960s and the 1990s,
the dominant attitude of the Israeli governmentswith little difference
between the left and right political sphereswas, generally speaking, a
realistic, pragmatic, and abusive one. The opponents of Israel, especially in the Arab world and the Soviet block, provided Israel with reasons to support non-democratic states that violated human rights, like
South Africa, and other non-democratic regimes in Asia, South America,
and Africa.
The 1990s marked a change in Israels attitude towards non-democratic regimes. These changes may be attributed to the first Intifada
(the Palestinian uprising against Israels occupation) that began in December 1987, and later to the Oslo agreements between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority signed in 1993one may even see these events
as a turning point in Israeli foreign policy. Nevertheless, this was only
the beginning of a change. Many military, economic, and political interests have not encouraged a liberal foreign policy. The power of these
interests has arisen from the secrecy of political and diplomatic activity, and even more from the secrecy of military interests. It was influenced by the weakness of the legislative branch versus the executive
one (the weakness of the Knessets supervision of the government). It
also related to the superficiality of information given by the media,
which often avoided giving information about and analyses of the dictatorial regimes and leaders with whom Israel cooperates, and the essence of the relations between them and Israel.4
The popular attitude and policy, that a little state surrounded by enemies has no choice and must, therefore, cooperate with non-democratic regimes, have had a large impact. It caused Israel, among other
acts, not to condemn the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in
1989the president of Israel was one of the first leaders from the West
to visit China after the massacre without any public protest. Israel refused to receive the Dalai Lama with high Israeli officials or politicians,
and his visits to Israel were considered private. Many Israelis thought that
moral issues are the privilege of large and strong states, and since Israel
has to struggle with its existential problems, it has no right to provoke
great China. According to this concept, Israel has no right to say anything concerning the massacres (it was arguably a genocide) in East
79
80
Biafra
In 1960, Nigeria became independent from British Colonial rule.
Nigeria was then an amalgam of diverse ethnic and religious groups.
Many Ibo, most of them Christians, left their impoverished home region to seek jobs in the north, where they had to live in segregated
settlements outside the walled cities of the Hausa Muslims. In January
1966, a few northern military leaders were killed in a coup, and the Ibo
were blamed for it. Rioting mobs killed hundreds of Ibo. In July 1966,
another coup provoked the genocidal massacre of 8,000 Ibo when their
settlements were attacked, looted, and burned. This genocidal massacre was a major cause of the secession of the Ibo, leading in July 1967
to the outbreak of civil war between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Ibo in the Eastern Regionwith the wish of the Ibo to separate from the Federal Government and establish their own state, Biafra.
The warfare and subsequent famine and disease that occurred between 1966 and 1969 in Biafra caused the death of 600,000-1,000,000
people, who were killed in battle. As Leo Kuper, one of the first genocide scholars, narrated: Biafra was born in massacre and bred in starvation.5
The Knesset debated the genocide in Biafra three times during 1968
and 1969, following private initiatives of members of the Knesset, who
wanted to raise the issue on the agenda of the parliament. In the debate
of July 9, 1969, a few members of the Knesset claimed that Israel had
to be clearer in criticizing the Federal Government of Nigeria, which
had forbidden and prevented famine relief sent by the Red Cross and
other organizations by shooting the airplanes that carried the relief. The
policy of intended starvation, they said rightly, is genocide according
to the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide adopted in 1948. Article II of the Convention
defines genocide as any of several acts committed with the intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such, including, (C) Deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. These members of the Knesset criticized the
cynical behavior of the Great Powers, their silence, and the constant
supply of weapons sold to the Federal Government by Britain and USSR.
Also mentioned was the U.S. and Englands pressure on the Red Cross
not to send humanitarian aid to Biafra.
81
They criticized the silence of the chief rabbis of Israel regarding this
human tragedy committed by other human beings. Members of the opposition, from the Left and Right wings, accused the moderate behavior of the Labor government in power, because of considerations of
political expediency. They emphasized the special obligation of the Jewish people in this regard after the Holocaust. This assembly has to be
the most outspoken regarding this subject...this has to be the attitude of
those who grew from the ashes of Auschwitz.6 Some members demanded that Israel raise the issue in the U.N. and that it recognize the
Biafran state, as some countries had done.
The foreign minister, Abba Eban, answering on behalf of the government, asked what Israel could have done except for humanitarian
aid and the fact we transmit our deep anxiety to the government of
Nigeria, which claimed that the issue is an internal one. He proposed
that the Committee for Security and Foreign Affairs of the Knesset would
deal with the issue. This proposal was accepted with some abstentions.
In spite of the cynical behavior of realpolitik that has characterized
Israeli governments regarding such cases of genocide, Israel provided
significant humanitarian support to the victims in Biafra as well as elsewhere, either officially by the government, or through private and individual humanitarian activists and institutions. For example, Abie Nathan,
an Israeli bohemian peace activist, who spent all his money in different
humanitarian activities all over the world, is one of the most outspoken
Israeli humanitarian activists. He began his work during the Biafran
war when he landed humanitarian aid on his own behalf with the assistance of volunteers and the collaboration of the Magen David Adom
(The Israeli parallel to The Red Cross).7
Tibet
Despite the fact that Tibets history as a civilization goes back 1,300
years and that Tibet had at one time occupied parts of China, the Peoples
Republic of China regards Tibet as a part of China and has brutally
suppressed Tibetan efforts to gain independence. During the 1950s,
China began a campaign of destroying Tibetan monasteries, and when
the Tibetans tried to defend themselves, they killed Tibetan monks and
civilians. By 1959, the fighting reached the capital city of Lhasa, when
Chinese communist troops shelled the palace of the Dalai Lama, the
leader of Tibet. As warfare between Chinese forces and those of the
82
Dalai Lama spread, thousands of Tibetans were killed, and monasteries, castles, and historic buildings were destroyed. The Dalai Lama was
forced to flee to India with many followers, where they remain to this
day. Objective reports on Tibet since 1959 indicate that China waged a
systematic campaign of ethnocide, and maybe even genocide, against
the Tibetan people. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, between
1966 and 1979, zealous Red Guards invaded the countryside, going
from village to village to destroy every relic they could find of the old
order. Tibetan architectural structures thousands of years old were not
only demolished but also often dismantled stone by stone. Thousands
of Tibetan civilians were massacred.8
Not all scholars accept that what has been happening in Tibet since
the 1950s can be defined as genocide. Some scholars prefer to define it
as ethnocide or cultural genocide. The Dalai Lama himself, speaking at
the French Senate in September 2000, warned that a cultural genocide
was underway in Tibet under the guise of Chinese-led development
program, and that Tibet faced serious environmental problems. He said
that Chinas drive to develop Tibetan cities was aimed at destroying its
ancient culture and pushing Tibetans out. There is a form of cultural
genocide taking place in Tibet, he said. In this regard, what is happening in Tibet is an ongoing ethnocide or cultural genocide. (Ethnocide is
considered as the intentional destruction of ethnic, national, religious,
or other peoples, not necessarily including the destruction of actual
lives.)
The Israeli government has tried, like the Western states, to find ways
to cooperate with China. It has been difficult, because since 1967 China
traditionally enjoyed close relations with the Palestinians and the Arab
World and had long adopted a Pro-Arab attitude. A window of opportunity in this direction has opened since the late 1980s.
In the late 1980s, a huge number of private and government contracts in different fields were signed with China, including military ones.
In 1982, Israel established formal relations with China. Human rights
activists tried to inform the Israeli public, as was done in Europe and
America, about the crimes committed by China in Tibet and about the
human rights violations in China. In the beginning this information was
received by the Israeli government and the public with indifference and
even hostility. Even after the creation of Rabins government in November 1992 (a coalition between the Labor party and Meretz, a party
that has a civil rights agenda), the policy has not changed significantly,
83
although there was a slight difference in attitude. Some ministers attributed this moderate shift to the appeals and letters of human rights
activists on this issue.
The government was afraid that Israels attitude regarding the Tibetan or human rights issues would hinder the budding relations and
the new horizons opened to economic collaboration, especially the sale
of weapons and military technology to China. It was also afraid that
indirect waysby an intermediary (sometimes against the wishes of
the U.S.)of supplying weapons to China in secret arrangements would
be discovered, or that the issue of human rights could come back like a
boomerang regarding human rights violations in the occupied territories. From 1989 to 1992 the ministers of the Likud government (a coalition consisting primarily of right-wing and religious parties) were informed
regularly by human rights activists about the situation in China and Tibet.
Nonetheless, they did not react and remained silent.
The Israeli media also avoided, almost completely, information about
the situation in Tibet and China. Many letters and much information
were sent to newspapers and members of the Knesset by human rights
activists, without any result. For example, not a single article or letter
to the editor sent to the Israeli newspaper during October-November
1992 was published. The attitude of the ministers of the Rabin government (since November 1992) towards the human rights activists and
supporters of the cause of Tibet in the Israeli public was more sympathetic. They confirmed getting the letters and sometimes expressed sympathy. Nonetheless, the changes, which seemed essential in the beginning,
were only cosmetic. They reacted with general comments on the issue of
Tibet, recognized its moral significance, but in one way or another,
accepted the priority of economic, military, and political interests.
Politicians from the left-wing parties that were the core of Rabins
government avoided public support for the Israeli Committee for Tibet.
In the meantime, Israel and China intensified their relationship and
cooperation. During that period, Israel sold China sophisticated military supplies worth billions of dollars, including material that was developed initially in the U.S. and forbidden for sale to China. In 1993
Prime Minister Rabin visited China, the first, historical, visit of an
Israeli prime minister there. In 1994, Chief of Staff Ehud Barak also
visited China.
On the other hand, efforts by human rights activists and supporters
of the cause of Tibet in Israel to bring the Dalai Lama to visit Israel
84
began in 1990, but failed. The government of China was hostile to the
idea, and so were the Likud and Labor governments. In the summer of
1993, Rabin ordered his ministers not to meet with the Dalai Lama if he
were to visit Israel.9
Finally, in March 1994, the Dalai Lama did visit Israel, as a guest of
the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and as a pilgrim. He
was honored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and also visited
Yad Vashem. He said that if a human being is controlled by hatred,
jealousy, and fear, he can commit unlimited destruction. He claimed
that, even after the visit to Yad Vashem, he believed that the human soul
is basically positive, but we human beings should not let negative forces
control us. No official representative was present at any of the events
during his visit. When in Eilat, where the 40th Conference of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel took place, the Dalai Lama
shook hands publicly with Yossi Sarid, the minister of environment, but
Sarid emphasized that the visit of the Dalai Lama in Israel was a private
one and that his decision to meet him was a personal decision, for which
he was solely responsible.
In 1999 the Dalai Lama visited Israel twice. During June 1999 he
was on a private visit, taking part in an interfaith conference with Jews,
Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Shintos. The trip was organized by
an American friendship group and the Inter-Religious Coordinating
Council in Israel. Again, he was not received by Israeli officials or political leaders, as China made it clear that it would be deeply offended
by any official reception for him. On another visit, in November 1999,
the Dalai Lama was received in the offices of the then minister of education Yossi Sarid, and the speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg. China
did not like it, but it seems that the close political economic and military cooperation between the two countries was not damaged.
Israel and the Genocide in the Former Republic
of Yugoslavia in the 1990s
Between 1991 and 1995, Yugoslavia turned from being a peaceful,
multi-ethnic nation to enduring a civil war that rapidly degenerated into
reciprocal atrocities, genocidal massacres, and ultimately into actual
genocide.
During World War II, nearly 500,000 Serbs, Jews, and Roma were
exterminated in the so-called Independent State of Croatia. With the
85
86
The international Jewish community took a clear position on the issue, along with the rest of the world. Some of those speaking for major
Jewish organizations emphasized that Jews have a special obligation to
speak out.
In a front-page article titled U.S. Jews Call for Action against Serb
Atrocities, the Jerusalem Post reported that:
American Jewish organizations are taking comparisons of reported Serbian
actions to the Holocaust seriously, and have taken a public role in calling
for U.S. and international action to stop the atrocities. As Jews, we are
commanded to remember and we have a historical imperative not to remain
silent when we hear words such as ethnic cleansing, cattle cars, selections,
concentration camps, said Abraham Foxman, national director of the AntiDefamation League of Bnai Brith, himself a child who had been saved by
a righteous Gentile during the Holocaust.12
In France, prominent French-Jewish intellectuals from the generation of 1968, among them Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard-Henri Levy,
and Andr Glucksmann, were very active in regard to the issue. They
even considered sending a faction to the European Parliament to act on
behalf of the Bosnian cause, and, in 1999, on behalf of the victims of
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. In 1999, Bernard Kushnir, one of the outstanding figures of the generation of 1968 in France, who never hid
his half-Jewish origins, and who, in his capacity as French minister of
humanitarian affairs, had worked in Bosnia and Rwanda, was named
U.N. Commissioner of Kosovo. The organization he created, Doctors
without Borders, received the Nobel Price in 1999.13
Israel did not take part in the condemnation of the Serbs. From the
outset, Israels stand on the Balkan conflict was quite different from
that of most of the world (except Russia), including the Jewish Diaspora;
Israel had been clearly and consistently pro-Serbian. This pro-Serbian
policy was supported by both the Likud and the Labor Party governments, which have held power in Israel since the beginning of the Balkan
conflict. Until mid-July 1995that is, during almost four years of massacres, ethnic cleansing, and genocideIsrael consistently refused
to join in the worldwide condemnation of the Serbs for their war crimes
and crimes against humanity. In this way, and in other, more direct
ways, Israel extended political and moral support to the Serbs. The Israeli governments also bear at least some responsibilityexactly how
much cannot yet be determinedfor the fact that the Serbs apparently
87
88
was raised in the Knesset on January 13, 1993. On February 17, 1993,
the issue of bringing eighty-four Muslim refugees from Bosnia to Israel was also raised. It was mentioned that Israel had sent humanitarian
aid to Bosnia in August 1992. Knesset members from the Right and
Ultra-Right wing criticized the aid (humanitarian only) given to the
Bosnians, who had supported the Palestinians in the war of 1948, and,
some claim, created a Bosnian-Nazi division that exterminated Jews
during the Holocaust (others reject this claim). Many emphasized that
Israels humanitarian involvement was far greater than the aid extended
by the rest of the international community, which preached morals but
did little to stop the atrocities in Bosnia. We, the sons of the Jewish
people, survivors of the Holocaust, are experienced with the silence
and the idleness of the enlightened world, said Knesset member
Avraham Hirshzon (Likud), himself a survivor of the Holocaust. The
silence of the Arab countries regarding the attacks in Bosnia in comparison to the humanitarian act of Israel was also emphasized. The decision of Prime Minister Begin to accept in 1977 102 Vietnamese refugees was then applauded: We are a light unto the nations said some of
the Knesset members.
The humanitarian aid to the Bosnians was raised several times also
in January, May, and June 1993. On May 5, 1993, Knesset Member
Dedi Zucker (Meretz) repeated his claim that we do not have the right
to remain silent, and that what we are doing does not match our just
criticisms of the behavior of the world during the 1930s and 1940s. He
proposed that Israel participate in the Peace-Keeping Forces that were
being created by the U.S. and European countries. The deputy foreign
minister, Yossi Beilin (Labor), said that Israel supports the decision of
the U.N. and participates in the implementation of the sanctions decided by the Security Council. According to him, further humanitarian
relief was sent, and Bosnia had avoided the reported messages that Israel would be ready to recognize its independence.
This was to remain Israels official position. The government would
not issue the mildest condemnation of the Serbs. Prime Minister Rabin
and Foreign Affairs Minister Peres withstood all attempts by reporters,
in Israel and abroad, to get them to do so. All that the Israeli government could be pressured into doing was to express regret at the events,
as if these were not crimes but rather a natural catastrophe. Even after a
massacre in the Sarajevo market, which resulted in the death of sixtynine victims and hundreds of wounded and shocked the world, the state-
89
On February 6, 1994, the Knessets speaker, Szewach Weiss (Labor), sent letters to the president of the Parliaments of the Permanent
Members of the Security Council of the U.N. (U.S., Russia, China,
England, and France):
The continuing acts of genocide in Bosnia are a mark of disgrace upon
humanity as a whole. We, sons of a people that was a victim of such massacres while the whole world stayed silent, cannot give a hand to the silencing of this atrocity. We feel deep identification with the inhabitants of
Sarajevo, and hope for an international act that will stop this horror. I turn
to you to do whatever is in your power to save the inhabitants of the seized
Sarajevo.
90
mentioned eleven rescue missions in which 3,000 persons, mainly Jews, were
rescued and that a Muslim woman, righteous of the nations (a Bosnian woman
who risked her life by saving Jews during the Holocaust) would be brought to
Israel in a few days.
While atrocities in Bosnia were still continuing, the issue was raised again
in the Knesset in May and on December 7, 1994, as well as in May and July
1995. The policy of refusing to condemn the Serbians clearly or to name
those responsible for crimes earned the government much praise from the
local Serbian lobby. By sticking to this policy, the government of Israel was
giving semi-official sanction to the efforts of the lobbys genocide-deniers.
They were not merely voicing their own opinion; they were practically
proclaiming the governments version of the events.
It was only at a very late stage of the Balkan conflict that the Israeli
government deviated, for a while, from this policy. In mid-July 1995,
with genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in its fifth year,
Foreign Affairs Minister Peres, Prime Minister Rabin, and Minister for
Environment Yossi Sarid finally conceded that the atrocities were being perpetrated by human agency and that that agency, for the most
part, were the Serbs.
Nevertheless, the condemnation of (Bosnian) Serbs was not repeated
again, and soon after the Dayton Agreement was in place in December
1995, the ties between Israel and Serbia were developing at full speed.
Even before Milosevic lost power there were strong political, economic,
cultural, and military ties between the two countries. It was no surprise
that the circle of Serb repression, atrocities, and ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo provoked no critical comments from Israels political establishment. On the other hand, Israel sent humanitarian relief to the refugees of Kosovo.
The government of Israel has done much more than support the
Serbs in this somewhat indirect way. In late summer 1991, with the
Serbian onslaught on Croatia in full swing and Serbia well on its way
to becoming an international pariah, the Israeli government decided to
establish diplomatic ties with it. Serbia soon opened its embassy in Tel
Aviv and designated an ambassador.16 The sanctions imposed on Serbia
by the U.N. prevented the submission of credentials and the opening
of an Israeli embassy in Belgrade at the time. But that did not prevent
the establishment of an embassyfirst under the designated ambassador and then under a charg daffairesfrom carrying on business as
usual and engaging in intense lobbying and public relations activity.
91
92
population, the camps, ethnic cleansing, and the rest of the atrocities
committed.
On the other hand, when it came to commenting on the events, explaining them to a public that knows next to nothing about Balkan geography or history, and setting out their wider implications, a pro-Serbian
stand has reigned supreme, both in the press and in radio and television
programs. This phenomenon is explained by Igor Primorac, an associate professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, using
the WWII argument, which goes beyond pragmatic realpolitik considerations. According to Primorac, the 1990s war in Yugoslavia was
understood in Israel as the direct continuation of what happened in Yugoslavia in World War II. During the war, the Croats and Muslims had
taken sides with the Nazis, and helped them exterminate the Jews. The
Serbs, on the other hand, fought against the Nazis, helped and protected
the Jews. According to this rationale, the Jews have a historical obligation to understand the Serbs cause and to support it today.20
Primorac, who was very critical toward Israels behavior regarding
the war in the Balkans, particularly toward the genocides in Bosnia and
Croatia, writes: Faced with this argument, one might want to ask two
questions: Are the historical claims true and, if so, should they decide
the moral and political issue here and now? And he concludes: What
I still find quite remarkable is that today, when we are witnessing the
first case of genocide in Europe since the Holocaust, there should be
Jews, of all people, in the Jewish State, of all places, showing understanding, sympathy, and support for Greater Serbia, and explaining their
understanding, sympathy and support in terms of the World War II argument. (He quotes Alain Finkielkraut, the French Jewish philosopher, who wrote that the Serbs carried out the first racial war in Europe
since Hitler and that the Serbs, the Nazis of this story, are trying to pass
themselves off as the Jews.)21 Those who have shared these views and
have struggled for them publicly at that time, were a small minority in
Israeli.22 After Primorac published a book review titled The Suffering
of Others,23 about Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of Ethnic Cleansingthe first book-length scholarly study of the subject by Norman
Cigarhe was attacked in Israel in a quite racial way: It is ironic, to
say the least, that just a week after Croatian troops had carried out the
largest ethnic cleansing, operation of the continuing Yugoslavia civil
war, driving 200,000 Serbs out of their homes, Igor Primoracs foul
anti-Serbian diatribe was published. Primoracs intellectual dishonesty
93
lies not only in his hate ridden charges against the Serbs, but in yanking
the past four years events out of their historical context [WWIIY.A.];
and then: Primorac is himself a Croat. His claim to some partial Jewish ancestry does not change that. His appeal to Jews to understand the
suffering of others is stale and in bad taste.24
No serious introspection has been done either by the media or by
political circles regarding Israels attitude during the wars of the 1990s
and acts of genocide. Even after the collapse of Milosevic and his arrest, and even after the beginning of his trial in The Hague before the
Ad Hoc Tribunal for crimes committed in the territory of the Former
Yugoslavia, Israel did not say anything regarding its ties with Milosevic.
Rwanda
Since 1994 Rwanda has become synonymous with one of the worst
genocides of the twentieth century. Out of a population of approximately 7.5 million, an estimated one million died at the hands of the
Hutu militias (locally known as inter-hamwe), with auxiliary support
from the army, party activities, communal authorities, and ordinary citizens who felt they had no other choice but to kill their neighbors in
order to save their own lives. Of these, the vast majority belonged to the
Tutsi minority, accounting at the time for approximately 10 percent of
the population; but thousands of Hutu from the south, identified with
opposition parties, also perished under the blows of the death squads.
The background to the genocide in Rwanda, as well as in Burundi,
was the tension between the two major ethnic groups, the Tutsi and
Hutu, which was intensified and even manipulated by the colonial rulers, paving the way for the so-called social revolution of 1959-1962.
With the overthrow of the Tutsi monarchy and the seizure of power by
Hutu elites, Rwanda became a Hutu-dominated republic. The watershed event was the 1959-1962 Hutu revolution. With substantial backing from the Catholic Church and the Belgian Trusteeship authorities, a
radical shift of power took place in Rwanda in the year immediately
preceding independence, resulting in the overthrow of the monarchy,
the proclamation of a republican form of government, and the flight
into exile of an estimated 200,000 Tutsi men, women, and children.
With the Tutsi minority effectively excluded from participating in the
political life of the country, the new Rwanda Republic was in fact if not
in name a Hutu Republic.
94
The Hutu revolution found its nemesis some thirty years later when,
on October 1, 1990, the RPF (the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic
Front) refugee warriors proceeded to fight their way back into Rwanda.
Most of them were sons of Uganda-based Tutsi refugees of the 1959
revolution.
The really critical event, however, which seemed to confirm the
worst fears of the Hutu community in Rwanda, was the assassination of the newly elected Hutu president of Burundi, Melchoir
Ndadaye, on October 21, 1993, by elements of the all-Tutsi Burundi
army. The message that came across could be summed up in four
words: Never trust the Tutsi! This assassination virtually destroyed all chance of compromise between Hutu and Tutsi in
both states. In Rwanda it drove the final nail into the coffin of the
Arusha agreements, which provided a compromise of sorts between
the Habyalimana government and the RPF.
As much as the appalling scale of the carnage was, it is the element
of planned annihilation that gives the Rwanda killings their genocidal
quality. Although there is an obvious connection with the threats posed
to the Rwandan state by the invasion of Tutsi refugee-warriors from
Uganda, the agonies of Rwanda are not those of civil war, but of an
organized butchery orchestrated by a relatively small group of Hutu
hardliners closely identified with the family of the late President Juvenal
Habyalimana. Anyone whose physical appearance, ethnic identity, or political affiliation offered grounds of presumed sympathy for the invaders
and their political-military organization, the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese
Patriotic Front (RPF), was fair game for the killers.
Ironically, the horrors of the Rwandan genocide have all but overshadowed in public attention another gruesome massacrethe 1972
genocide in Burundi. From May to October 1972, anywhere from
100,000 to 200,000 Hutu were killed by the all-Tutsi army in retaliation for a Hutu-led localized rebellion that resulted in the deaths of
hundreds (some say thousands) of Tutsi civilians. Although the scale of
the Burundi genocide is of a lesser magnitude, its moral and political
significance cannot be ignored, any more than its historical relationship to the Rwanda genocide.25
The genocide of Rwanda is a genocide that could have been prevented, maybe more than any other genocide in the last century. According to most experts, the Rwandan genocide could have been stopped
if not prevented. But the international community refused to act.
95
In the Israeli parliament the issue was debated several times during
1994 while the genocide was taking place. The issue was first raised on
May 18, 1994 by Naomi Chazan (Meretz), who said that in Rwanda a
holocaust is actually occurring and that The issue was raised on the
agenda of the Knesset and the western world a month too late.26 She
emphasized the special responsibility of the State of Israel regarding this
event. According to Chazan, we should be clear and unequivocal in our
reaction to the tragedy; otherwise we give up a significant component
of our Zionist vision. Vice Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin said that Israel
supported the Security Councils decision of embargo of weapons and
the sending of 5,000 troops to the area. A government resolution, which
was published on May 22, 1994, regarding events in Rwanda stated:
The government of Israel is shocked by the genocide taking place in
Rwanda and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The Jewish people, which has experienced the most bitter event of the
Nazi holocaust, and its state, the State of Israel, cannot be indifferent to
the horrors in Rwanda.
In July 1994, the Israeli government sent a field hospital to Rwanda
(actually to Goma, Zaire) with eighty-nine staff persons (The Blossoms of Hope Operation). This operation was praised by all. It is estimated that about 3,000 Rwandan refugees were treated in the Israeli
hospital. It is known now, that among them were also murderers, executors of the genocide, who were hiding in the refugees camps.
On July 27, 1994, the government raised the issue on the agenda of
the Knesset.27 The relief Israel had sent was praised by some, while
others claimed that it was sent too late. The analogies with and the
differences from the Jewish Holocaust were also raised. Some members of the Knesset spoke about a hypocritical and cynical world and
the fact that countries are continuing to send weapons to Rwanda (Israel was not mentioned in this regard). The right-wing MP Rechavam
Zeevi said that the lesson for us is that we can only count upon ourselves (in relation to our own struggle with the Arabs). Although the
terms genocide and holocaust were mentioned to define the killing
in Rwanda, the unanimous statement of the Knessetall the participants, 26 MPs of a total of 120 (the others were absent), supported the
decisionspoke about deep shock and great concern regarding
the terrible human tragedy that is going on in Rwanda. It praised
the relief sent by Israel, and asked other governments to join it
before it would be too late. The statement also asked for the cre-
96
97
98
The key question is, why does the United States stand so idly by?
Indeed, the picture that becomes increasingly clear regarding the attitude towards acts of genocide is one of indifference, the reality of the
bystander. The reaction of the multitudesthose located between the
perpetrator and the victimsis characterized by indifference, conformity, and opportunism. The State of Israel, unfortunately, has not reached
beyond this banality. It has stood on the sidelines, indifferent. Even
worse, it has supported the perpetrator indirectly and sometimes even
directly.
Increasingly, I become convinced that those who stand on the sidelines inadvertently support the murderers, never the victims. When we
decide not to take sides, we practically have taken the side of the aggressor. Morally, we cannot sit idly in the face of criminal acts of genocide. We cannot accept the argument that nothing can be done, that
such things happen. Evil does not cease to be evil when it hurts another. It is written in the Bible, Leviticus 19: 16: You shall not stand
idly by the blood of your neighbor. Morally, at least, the bystanders
are responsible, and may also be guilty.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
99
Leo Kuper, quoted in Encyclopedia of Genocide, p. 347. The above paragraph is based on the article Ibos in the Encyclopedia.
Protocols of the Knesset, July 9, 1969.
See P. de Bounbil, The Death of Biafra (Tel Aviv: Othpaz, 1969), especially the chapter about Israeli relief to Biafra, pp. 133-150; Abie Nathan,
Memories (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1998), pp. 93-104.
Encyclopedia of Genocide, op. cit., p. 543.
Bambi Sheleg, Missing, Hadashot, July 1, 1993.
About the genocide in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia see, among
others, the entry in Encyclopedia of Genocide, op. cit., pp. 633-654; Steven
L. Burg, Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, edited by Samuel Totten, William S.
Parsons, and Israel W. Charny (New York: Garland Press, 1997), pp. 424433.
These paragraphs are based partly on the articles of Igor Primorac on the
subject. See: Israel and the War in the Balkans, Mediterranean Policies,
Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1999, pp. 79-94; Israel and the Genocide in Croatia,
in Genocide after Emotion (The post-emotional Balkan War), edited by
Styepan G. Mestrovic (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 195206.
Allison Kaplan and Tom Tugend, U.S. Jews Call for Action against Serb
Atrocities, The Jerusalem Post, August 6, 1992.
About this very interesting phenomenon, related in my opinion to the
impact of the Holocaust and the Jewish-universal memory of it, see Yair
Auron, Les Juifs dExtrme Gauche en Mai 68une gnration
rvolutionnaire marque par la Shoah (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998).
Protocols of the Knesset, August 5, 1992.
Protocols of the Knesset, February 7, 1994.
The ambassador designate was Dr. Budimir Kosutic, who had been vice
premier of the Belgrade government. He was about to be elected the first
president of the Serb Republic setup in the Serb-held, ethnically
cleansed part of Croatia, when it turned out that he might be even more
useful to the Serbian cause as a Serbian ambassador to Israel. See Igor
Primorac, 1999, op. cit., p. 83.
Ibid., p. 84, who quotes Serb sources and newspapers, showing that the
Israeli ambassador to Serbia kept voicing similar pro-Serbian themes also
later, in 1997.
Igor Primorac, 1996, op. cit., pp. 197-199. See more details in the articles of
Primorac mentioned above and also in Israeli Shells on Sarajevo, The
Jerusalem Report, February 9, 1995; A Saga of Deep Shame, The Jerusalem Post, July 18, 1993; The Serbia-Israel Connection, Foreign Report
258, April 1, 1999.
Tom Sawicki, How Are Bosnias Serbs Getting Israeli Arms, The Jerusalem Report, January 26, 1995.
Igor Primorac, 1996, op. cit., pp. 204-205.
Ibid.
100
22. On February 14, 1994, seven people sent a letter to the editor of Haaretz,
demanding unequivocal Israeli condemnation of the Serbs. Prof. A. Z.
Bar-On and nine other Hebrew University professors published a letter to
the editor of The Jerusalem Post, January 20, 1992, and four others sent a
letter to Shimon Peres, minister of foreign affairs, and Shulamit Aloni,
minister of education and culture (August 4, 1992) regarding Israeli and
Serbian relations. On April 6, 1992, Igor Primorac asked the president of
Israel, Chaim Herzog, not to shake the hand of the nominated ambassador
of Serbia (private archive). Prof. Shlomo Avineri also condemned publicly several times the behavior of Serbia and the ambivalent attitude of
Israel toward it. Daniel Kofman, a Hebrew University lecturer, was also
active in this issue.
23. Igor Primonrac, The Suffering of Others, The Jerusalem Post Magazine, August 18, 1995 (A book review of Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy
of Ethnic Cleansing by Norman Cigar, College Station, TX: Texas A & M
University Press, 1995).
24. Elliot A. Green, Intellectual Dishonesty (letter to the editor), The Jerusalem Post Magazine, September 1, 1995.
25. The above paragraph is based on the article, Genocide in Rwanda and
Burundi, written by Ren Lemarchard, Encyclopedia of Genocide, pp.
508-513.
26. Protocols of the Knesset, May 18, 1994.
27. Protocols of the Knesset, July 27, 1994.
28. Only dozen were present in the event organized by Amnesty on behalf of
the Rwandan refugees, Haaretz, September 22, 1994.
29. Efraim Zuroff, Why I Had To Go To Rwanda, The Jerusalem Post, November 29, 1995.
30. Or Kashti, Knowledge About Genocide, Haaretz, December 4, 1995.
31. See, among others, Leave None to Tell the StoryGenocide in Rwanda,
edited by Alison Des Forges (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), p.
636. Information about this issue was reported by the BBC on November
18, 1996 claiming that both British and Israeli arms sales were made to
the Hutu government militia in April 1994. The issue was raised in the
Israeli media on November 19, 1996. In a report of Amnesty International
of February 14, 1998 concerning arming the perpetrators of the genocide,
there was a description of four pilots employed by a U.K. company that
admitted in public to having flown four large charter planeloads of small
arms from Israel and Albania to Goma during April 1994. The supplies
are said to have included Israeli-made weaponry, such as Uzi sub-machine guns, as well as grenades captured by the Israeli army from the
Egyptian army in 1973.
32. Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
(New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 504.
5
The Armenian Genocides Recognition
by States: The Israeli Aspect
This is our obligation to you; this is our obligation to ourselves.Israeli Minister of Education, Yossi Sarid, April 24,
2000
In the debates over the Armenian Genocide, it is often said by officials in Israel and in other countries that historians, not politicians, should
discuss the issue. That is what Israeli officials said to Turkish representatives after Yossi Sarids statement in April 2000 (see chapter 7), and
what the Clinton administration (like all the other U.S. administrations
before it) claimed when it succeeded in preventing the United States
legislative initiative in the year 2000. This argument was also raised
during the debate in France over the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and eventually adopted by the Parliament. The Armenians in the
Diaspora and now also the Republic of Armenia, on the other hand,
claim, in the words of Robert Kocharian, the president of the Armenian
Republic, that Le gnocide nest pas laffaire des historians (The
Genocide is not a matter for historians) (Le Figaro, February 12, 2001).
It is significant in this context to mention again the statement in which
126 Holocaust scholars affirmed in June 2000 the incontestable fact of
the Armenian Genocide and accordingly urged the governments of
Western democracies to recognize it as such.1
The claim of politicians that the issue should be left to the historians
is, of course cynical, and is usually an instrument used to avoid discussion, mainly because of political interests. However, in recent years
after a stubborn struggle by the Armenians and their supporters, usually on moral groundsthe debate over the recognition of the
101
102
103
This was the result of the fact that the Swiss government was against
the pro-Armenian resolution and had urged lawmakers to reject it. In
spite of that, a new bill for the recognition was deposited in March
2002 in the Swiss Parliament that is expected to be discussed, but until
now the Swiss have not made a resolution specifically recognizing the
Armenian Genocide. It is highly likely that the issue will also be discussed in the near future in the German Parliament.
In this chapter we focus on the Israeli attitude towards recognition of
the Armenian Genocide and examine closely the involvement of the
State of Israel in two debates in the American Congress regarding the
Armenian Genocide, as well as some debates in the Israeli Parliament.
United States: 1989A Proposal for an Armenian Memorial Day
At the end of September 1989, fifty-four U.S. Senators proposed a
bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee that read as follows:
The 24th of April 1990 will be declared a national memorial day in commemoration of 75 years after the Armenian Genocide in the years 19151923; the President will be authorized and will be asked to publish a declaration which will call upon the American People to mark this date as a
memorial day for the million and a half people of Armenian descent who
were victims of genocide committed by the governments of the Ottoman
Empire between the years 1915-1923, before the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.2
104
munity tried to create a rift between the Jews and the Armenians. Various sourcescertain circles in the American Jewish community and
the U.S. House of Representativesreported the involvement of Israeli representatives in the affair. Jews and Israeli Diplomats Work to
Prevent Commemoration of Armenian Holocaust was the front-page
headline in the respected Hebrew newspaper, Haaretz (October 17,
1989). The official denials of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the
Foreign Ministry, and the Prime Ministers Office were received with
skepticism in Israel and the United States (Maariv, October 24, 1989).
Although there was a majority in support of determining a memorial
day for the Armenian Genocide at first, the proposal was ultimately
removed from the agenda: The administration of President George Bush
took steps to defeat the motion.
The administration explained that, although sensitive to the tragic
suffering of the Armenians, we are also aware of the close relations
and strong friendship with Turkey, and of the varying opinions about
the question of how to properly mark the terrible events of that period.
A year earlier, when he was running for the presidency, Bush had promised to support the congressional initiative to commemorate the Armenian victims (The Jewish Week, October 27, 1989). At that time Bush
claimed that the United States had an obligation to recognize the Armenian Genocide if it wanted to prevent such acts from occurring in the
future.
The arguments in the Israeli public debate over the involvement of
Jews and Israeli representatives in that affair were similar to those raised
in such controversies in Israel itself regarding the Armenian Genocide.
Against the pragmatic considerations tied to Israeli-Turkish relations,
moral arguments were presented both in Israel and the United States.
The enormous sensitivity to Jewish involvement in the affair acquired
an additional dimension in the relations between Israel and Diaspora
Jewry. But Jerusalem did not anticipate or understand the level of sensitivity. Senator Dole publicly expressed (October 18, 1989) his disappointment in the attitude of Jews, that although they themselves or their
own families were victims of genocide, they did not react positively to
that humanitarian initiative.
Liberal Jewish organizations in the United States were embarrassed.
Two Jewish organizations that wished to remain anonymous stated that
the Israeli intervention had embarrassed them, inasmuch as American
Jewry tended to support the proposal to mark a day of commemoration:
105
106
107
The board of directors of the Holocaust Museum in Washington decided in 1983, and reconfirmed its decision in 1987, to include a mention of the Armenian Genocide in the museum, but only to the extent
that it was connected to the Holocaust or helped to clarify it. At the
same time, it appears that there was, at one stage, an intention to give a
more prominent place to the Armenian Genocide. As expected, the Turkish government objected to the inclusion of any references to the Armenian Genocide, since, According to the official Turkish version, the
anti-Armenian genocidal event never happened. The Israeli embassy
lobbied on Turkeys behalf in this matter,4 using as one of the arguments the claim that the uniqueness of the Holocaust would be harmed
with all of the resulting ramifications.5
The press reported that the Turkish Foreign Minister met with leaders of the Anti-Defamation League (an influential Jewish American
organization) in 1989 and requested their intervention. Officially, American Jews refused to commit themselves to helping: We have a problem helping the Turks publicly, explained a Jewish leader. As a
people which endured a Holocaust we have a problem opposing a
memorial day for another people. But people from the Jewish community worked behind the scenes: American Jews were aware of the
interests of the Turkish Jewish community. A live Jew is more important to us than a dead Armenian, was the way one Jewish leader
bluntly put it. But he opposed it also for another familiar reason: a
memorial day for the Armenians will lead to the approval of other
memorial days, for the Indians, the Vietnamese and the Irish or for
any other people. That will weaken the importance of Holocaust Day
here.6
Within Israel itself, the Israeli involvement in preventing a memorial day for the Armenians aroused harsh articles in the press. In an
article in Haaretz (October 20, 1989) titled The Holocaust and Politics, Akiva Eldar claimed: The politics of [Israeli] weapons dealers
has long since pushed morality aside. It seems that this time morality
has lost to wickedness.
An editorial in Haaretz a few days later (October 23, 1989), entitled
The Holocaust Obliges Respect Toward the Armenians, compared
the intention behind the attempts to deny the Holocaust to the intention
of the Turkish government. It says that Israel cannot whitewash the evil
implicit in such assistance: The memory of the Holocaust which befell us commands us to display understanding for the sense of suffering
108
of the Armenian People, and not to be an obstacle in the path of American legislation of its memory.
An editorial in The Jerusalem Post of October 25, 1989 said:
Turkey is a friendly country; and it should in the friendliest and most diplomatic of terms be advised that the attempt by the old Ottoman rulers, back
in 1915, to make the traitorous Armenians into authors of their own misfortune, does not serve well as the basis for contemporary relations. Anything less
could in the end only serve the cause of those who would deny the Holocaust
and absolve the Nazis of their historic crime against the Jewish people.
Sheila Hattis wrote in the Labor newspaper Davar (A Rare Commodity Called Honor, October 29, 1989) that the reports of the involvement of
Jews and Israeli diplomats in the efforts to prevent establishment of a day
of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide was one of the most nauseating reports appearing in the press in recent times... It appears that honor is
not a commodity with which we are blessed these days.
Especially harsh was Boaz Evrons article, No Limits (Yedioth
Ahronoth, October 20, 1989):
I am willing to bet that if we were neighbors of Nazi Germany and the
latter were to take action against a different minority within its borders, and
109
In Haaretz (October 22, 1989) it was reported that Turkey was ready
to raise the level of diplomatic representation in Israel if Jewish organizations in the United States became active against an Armenian memorial day. (Ankara had downgraded relations with Israel in 1981. The
two countries were then represented at the level of charg daffaires).
At first there were rumors that Israel had asked American Jewish organizations to lobby against the measure. Israeli Foreign Ministry officials
refused to confirm or deny these reports. Nevertheless, they confirmed that
the Israeli Embassy in Washington was studying the situation.
As the criticism against Israels behavior continued, the Foreign
Ministrys spokesman declared (October 23, 1989) that Israel, as the
state of the Jewish people, who have suffered more persecution and
oppression than any other people, is very sensitive to the suffering of the
Armenian people. He added that Israeli delegations will not intervene in
questions related to this matter.
At this moment the members of the Knesset took action. Member of
Knesset Yair Zaban (Meretz) initiated in October 1989 a resolution that
was supported by fifteen members of the Knesset Security and Foreign
Affairs Committee from six factions. The proposal stated:
The Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee believes that efforts to preserve the memory of the massacre of the Armenian People during the First
World War should be viewed with understanding and support. The Committee believes that any attempt to blur or deny Holocaust or mass murder
inflicted on any people is inherently invalid. As members of a people which
has known suffering and persecution we understand the suffering of the
Armenian People. (Al Hamishmar, October 24, 1989)
The statement, though, did not mention the word Turk. Another member of Knesset, Yossi Sarid, stated that the Jewish people, who had en-
110
dured a terrible Holocaust, were the last who ought to sanction the denial of the Holocaust of another people, no matter what the momentary
considerations might be. (Haaretz, October 19, 1989)
Another effort was made by Yair Zaban, on November 8, 1989, in a
question he raised before the Knesset to Foreign Minister Moshe Arens
on the activities of the Ministry and its attitude toward the denial of the
Armenian Genocide. Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
answered Zabans questions by denying any activity of Israel or American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the issue.7
This official statement of the Foreign Ministry published on October
23, 1989 and reported by Netanyahu in the Knesset should be examined carefully, for it did not convey, in the least, all the truth. Perhaps
even more significant is what he did sayhe emphasized the suffering
of the Jewish people: Israel, the state of the Jewish people who has
suffered more than any other people from persecutions and oppression,
is very sensitive to the suffering of the Armenian people. He was careful not to use the word genocide (the G word), but instead the vague
term suffering, which is the word (as well as the word tragedy) also
used by the Turks in relation to this matter.
Zaban reacted to the statement, claiming that what Netanyahu had
said proves that we are in the middle of a disgraceful affair, and that the
issue should stay on our agenda until we become involved, together
with the American Jewish lobby for, and not against, the Armenian
memorial.
Some other members of the Knesset insisted on the importance of
moral considerations, and argued that sometimes moral considerations
are even very useful. Netanyahu answered that Israel gets involved in
the legal process of another country only in issues that are related to the
State of Israel. Then he said, there are things that are above diplomacy. Holocausts of other peoples are a clear case of this category.
But, he insisted that this was not related to the State of Israel. Still,
some members of the Knesset estimated that maybe, because of their
pressures, Israel, at least, would stop its involvement on behalf of the
Turks. They were mistaken.
Some months later the issue was raised in another case: the affair of
the documentary film about the Armenian Genocide based on the personal story of one of the survivors, Voyage to Ararat (see chapter 8,
The Sphere of the Media).
111
112
nian Genocide (mentioned in the introductory chapter, see also Appendix D), Lantos said:
Wiesel is one of my friends. However, his field of expertise is limited to the
Jewish Holocaust. As I do not ask basketball star Michael Jordan which
telephone I will purchase, I do not ask advice from Wiesel for Armenian
Genocide allegations.8
The Chair of the Committee postponed the discussion and the vote on
the resolution to the following week, a decision that was criticized by
Armenian lobby members.
Finally, the resolution was endorsed by the International Relations
Committee, and later had to be brought to the plenum of the House of
Representatives. The American administration had made clear its point
of view since the beginning of the discussions: The State Department
claimed that historians, not lawmakers, are the ones who should be
concerned with this matter and that the U.S. was prepared to assist the
efforts of the Turkish and Armenian experts, together with academics
from other countries, to study their joint history.
The State Department, it is interesting to mention, has clear and general instructions not to use the expression Armenian Genocide. Therefore, in the announcements concerning the Congressional initiative, the
spokesman was careful to use the word with quotation marks, gesturing
with his fingers to signify this; yet he also thought that it was fit to add that
the slaughter of the Armenians in 1915, is already mentioned in two
courses for American diplomats.
The administration warned the lawmakers that if the Armenian proposal passed, it could undermine the entire Caucasus and harm American relations with Turkey, our strategic partner in the region.
There was nothing vague about Turkeys position on the matter. It
had threatened to close down its Incirlik air force base, from which
American planes take off for bombing missions in Iraq. A Turkish Member of Parliament cynically suggested building a monument in Ankara
to the memory of the murdered American Indians.
Turkish newspapers seemed to be loaded at the end of September
and the beginning of October 2000 with articles smearing the United
States: A Knife in the Back, An Ugly Plot, and Betrayal, screamed
the headlines in Ankara.
Washington got the hint. The pressure on Congress mounted. Finally, on October 19, 2000, just hours before the plenum of the House
113
114
Journalist Zvi Barel (Haaretz, October 25, 2000), who wrote: Armenian History Will Have to Wait (the original Hebrew title of his
article was Was there a Genocide?), shows quite another side of the
picture about the involvement of Israel in the issue.14 According to him,
based on Turkish sources, Turkey even appealed to Israel to exert its
influence on members of Congress. Barel quotes Ilnur Cevik, the edi-
115
116
again. The lesson we must learn from the stark annals of history is that we
must forge a more humane future for the peoples of all nations.
Our own society has benefited immeasurably from the contributions of
Armenian-Americans. They have enriched every aspect of American life,
from science, to commerce, to the arts. For the past eight and a half years,
the Armenian people have been engaged in an historic undertaking to establish democracy and prosperity in the independent Republic of Armenia.
Their courage, energy and resourcefulness inspire the admiration of all
Americans, and we are proud to extend our assistance to help realize the
dream of a vital and vibrant Armenia. The United States fully supports the
efforts of Armenia and its neighbors to make lasting peace with one another and to begin an era of security and cooperation in the Caucasus region. We encourage any and all dialogue between citizens of the region that
hastens reconciliation and understanding.
On behalf of the American people, I extend my best wishes to all Armenians on this solemn day of remembrance.
On April 24, 1994, President Clinton referred in his statement regarding the Armenian Memorial Day also to the atrocities in Kosovo:
Today, against the background of events in Kosovo, all Americans
should recommit themselves to building a world where such events never
occur again. Yet, Clinton avoided using the term genocide in his
statements, submitting to Turkish pressure. Instead he used phrases like
a great tragedy of the twentieth century, or one of the saddest chapters of this century.
Unfortunately we have to admit (as we will see in the details of the
next section), that the leaders of the State of Israelunlike the American
presidenteven avoided, except for few exceptions, any expression of
sympathy or identification with the Armenians in mourning the loss of so
many innocent lives.
The decision to withdraw the resolution after the letter from the president was, no doubt, an American sovereign decision. Who can, after
all, tell the president of the United States what to do? It is therefore
especially interesting to examine the point of view of a Turkish journalist, Sedat Sertoglu, in this matter.17 The Turkish columnist claimed to
know who was the mastermind behind the plan for President Clinton to
send a letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives. According
to him, Jewish lobby groups such as AIPAC, Bnai Brith, and ADL
(Anti-Defamation League; the American Jewish Congress was a little
distant), had intensive talks with the Turks that explained that the acceptance of the resolution would have a strong negative effect on Turk-
117
118
Americans and Armenian-Americans. It has been welcome by the Turkish government, but we have paid a price. The price has been that we
have the Greek and Armenians very angry at us, as they told the Turkish Daily News.
Indeed some Armenians were very angry: Up until now, Armenians
have treated these Jewish groups with kid gloves, hoping for an eventual reconciliation with them. After these strident remarks, it is clear
that they have foreclosed any possibility of friendly relations with the
Armenian community.19 In the mind of these Armenians these Jewish
groups, having gotten their marching orders from Israel, have made a
firm and final decision to side with the tyrants of Turkey and the barbarians of Baku against the defenseless Armenians struggling for their
survival.20 At least in the eyes of some Jews and some Armenians it is,
unfortunately, a competition of victims.
It is quite clear that the Armenian Genocide Resolution, which was
withdrawn at the last moment in October 2000, is not the last stage of
the struggle. All over the world, and in the U.S. in particular, the struggle
for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and its memory continues. Armenians and Turks are preparing the next stages in the battle.
The pastnot only for the Jews, but also for the Armenians and the
Turks, each in contradictory directionsis inseparable from the present,
and the future.
Israel 1994: Semi-Official Recognition?
In 1994, the Armenian issue was raised in the Israeli Parliament.
This time the debate centered on a report on Israeli First Channel Television (FCT). The reportage was connected to the curriculum that was
being prepared about the Armenian Genocide (see chapter 6) and to the
Armenian Memorial Day. The Turkish Foreign Ministry and the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv exerted pressure, as in previous cases, not to
air the program, although unsuccessfully. Finally, the report (twelve
minutes) that included information about the Genocide, interviews with
Armenians, including one survivor of the Genocide who lived in Jerusalem, and interviews with Israeli students was shown, followed by an
interview with the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv, who repeated the
official Turkish version about the events of 1915 and criticized the fact
that Israel is interested in the Armenian issue, which was, according to
him, against the common interests of the two countries.
119
120
But not everyone thinks the issue is so complicated. In 1995, as mentioned, when Yossi Beilin was deputy foreign minister, he used the phrase
Armenian Genocide from the Knesset podium when answering questions about it. The Armenians have not forgotten that remark, but point
out that since then, there has been a significant weakening of the Israeli
stand, in direct relation to the deepening ties between Israel and Turkey.
Five years later, in April 2000, Beilin said with the same decisiveness:
It doesnt have to be this way. I think that our attitude toward such a dreadful historical event cannot be dictated by our friendly relations with Turkey, even though this relationship is particularly important to me as one
who worked so hard to develop it. I also see the contradiction between the
121
political track and the ethical one. Something happened that cannot be defined except as genocide. One-and-a-half million people disappeared. It
was not negligence, it was deliberate. I do not think that the government
has to take an official decision on the issue, but we must clarify to the Turks
that we cannot accept their political demands to ignore a historical event.
An ethical stand cannot be dictated by political needsthese are two separate tracks.26
122
firm had lost to a French company; when the relations between France
and Turkey soured over the Armenian question, Ankara threatened to
cancel projects assigned to the French firm.29 Israel then had a good
chance of winning a major contract to upgrade hundreds of Turkish
tanks in a deal estimated at $2 billion (indeed, a contract was agreed in
March 2002 and came into force in October 2002; see later). The Israeli
foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, raised the possibility that Turkey
might also reconsider buying an Israeli imaging satellite.
It seems that the discussion about the Armenian issue in Israel bore
some similarities to discussions in other states. It would be worthwhile
to compare it to another case, the Canadian one. Lorne Shirinians comprehensive book, Quest for Closure: The Armenian Genocide and the
Search for Justice in Canada, gives us a good opportunity to examine in
depth the debates regarding the Canadian recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. This case, though very different from the Israeli one, may shed
more light on this complex issue.30
On April 23, 1996, the Canadian House of Commons passed a historical resolution:
That this House recognize, on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the
Armenian tragedy (my emphasisY.A.) which claimed some 1.5 million
lives that took place on April 24, 1915, and in recognition of other crimes
against humanity, the week of April 20 to 27 of each year as the week of
remembrance of the inhumanity of people toward one another.
Since the G word was absent, this was not considered a full recognition. The Liberal government changed the wording of the original statement proposed by a member of Parliament from the Bloc Qubcois,
the official opposition, which contained the phrase Armenian Genocide, and watered it down to Armenian tragedy. Although the notion
itself was a step forward, the Canadian government missed an opportunity to use the more accurate and more appropriate term genocide.
Nevertheless, certain Canadian municipal and provincial governments
and leaders have found the Armenian issue clearer and easier to accept
than the federal government and have used the term genocide in their
resolutions or statements. Among them are the mayor of the City of
Vancouver (in 1984) and the Municipal Council of the City of Montreal
(in 1997).
The legislatures of the most populous provinces, Ontario and Qubec,
dealt with the Armenian Genocide in the 1980s. The Legislature of
123
124
had taken place during World War I. As already mentioned, Peres had
been described before in the Turkish press as the personality who had
influenced President Clinton in preventing a pro-Armenian resolution in
the House of Representatives in the year 2000. This claim was also
repeated in 2001 in the Turkish press.34
The interview with Peres was conducted on the eve of his official
visit to Turkey. Peres claimed in it that it is for historians to deal with
such historical issues. This claim may seem feasible, and is sometimes
used by governmentsincluding the American and the Israeliwho
wish to avoid the dilemma. Nevertheless, it is very well known that this
denial tactic is practiced manipulatively by the Turks and their supporters.
According to the Turkish newspaper, Peres said that Israel should
not take a historical or philosophical position on the Armenian issue,
but added: If we have to determine a position, it should be done with
great care as not to distort the historical realities.
Furthermore, Peres was quoted as saying:
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.
Israel, as we have shown, had been systematically avoiding the Armenian issue. Now the foreign minister joined the deniers on behalf of the
Israeli government. This was not the Holocaust (with a capital H); this
was not a holocaust or even a genocide, claimed the minister. What is it
but an Israeli escalation from passive to active denial, from moderate
denial to hard-line denial? Imagine the Israeli and Jewish reaction to a
similar claim by another countrys foreign minister, regarding the Holocaust. What would be our reaction if the Holocaust had been called a
tragedy?
And what was, in fact, the reaction in Israel to these controversial
words of Peres? At first, the Israeli media ignored the subject completely, although Peres visit to Turkey had received much attention in
Israel. Only after the outraged reaction of the Armenians all over the
world, including those who live in Israel, and due to the reaction of
some Armenian supporters was the issue raised at all in the Israeli
newspapers.35
Why did Peres, the experienced, respected politician decide to make
this statement? Surely not out of ignorance of the Armenian Genocide.
125
126
Another, who noted that he is the son of two surviving orphans of the
Armenian Genocide, wrote: I hope this does not represent the conscience of this great nation of Israel. Sarid, Charney, Auron, Beilin, Bauer
etc. Where are their voices? This is a true disappointment and emotionally
unbearable! Of all the people of the world Jews should be most sensitive to
our trauma. Alas!37
The Armenians were shocked to learn that an act of genocide was to
be presented as meaningless by a man whose people suffered the same
fate, but, as was written to Peres himself, We are sure that deep down
you know that genocide was inflicted upon the Armenian people.38
The deploring question of how such declarations could come from
a very highly placed official of the State of Israel whose people have
suffered the same fate was repeated by many.
Later on, some Israelis raised their voices. Yehuda Bauer wrote:
The statements of the Foreign Minister are denial of a very clear and unequivocal case of genocide by a representative of a people whose fate became a symbol of this notion. There are today people who argue exactly as
he does: indeed, not a few Jews were murdered by Nazis, but it was not a
genocide. There are significant differences between the Holocaust and the
murder of the Armenians, but that the two cases are acts of genocide cannot
be discussible.39
Former minister of education, Yossi Sarid, who at that time was the
opposition leader, attended the eighty-sixth commemorative rally at the
Armenian convent in Jaffa, and accused Peres comments as being arbitrary and baseless and he added: Many Israelis are ashamed of
Shimon Peres remarks.40 Expressing his astonishment Sarid said that
it is incomprehensible that someone of Shimon Peres caliber can show
understanding for denial by the Turks. He demanded that Peres retract
his statement. I hope that next year Israel will join those states who
have already recognized the Armenian Genocide. He emphasized that
he himself stands behind what he had proposed the year before: I am
convinced more than ever that the Armenian Genocide should be taught
in Israeli schools.
Yet not one Jewish organization abroad condemned publicly what
Peres said. To the best of my knowledge, only one isolated private Jewish voice publicly condemned Peres statement and one U.S. Congressman, Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the House International Relations Committee, of Jewish heritage, pledged to take appropriate steps
127
128
that began in October 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon encountered some new difficulties, because of the explosive situation in
the Middle East. After hearing blunt criticism from his Turkish hosts,
Sharon finished his observations saying that Turkey has some problems that we [Israelis] can help solve if we were asked to, but in return,
we expect Ankara to help us reimpose security and calm in the region.
What Sharon meant, according to some comments, was for Turkey to
pressure Arafat into stopping the Intifada as a condition for helping
Turkey solve its political and economic problems via the Jewish lobby
in the U.S. Congress. In other words, military and security cooperation
between Ankara and Tel Aviv is no longer enough to guarantee Israels
help in getting the U.S. Jewish lobby to help Turkey against Armenian
and Greek pressures in America. Ankara must also provide cover for
Sharons policiessomething the Turks probably did not count on when
they set out on their program of cooperation with Israel in 1996.45
Israel, a state under siege, has the right to seek military alliances
with states such as Turkey. It has the right to not take an official position on the Armenian Genocide if it deeply and sincerely believes that
an official act of recognition would cause it irreparable harm. Though
not the most ethical of decisions, that may be tolerable and even understandable.46 But this does not give justification for Peres, in the name of
the State of Israel to have entered into the range of actual denial of the
Armenian Genocide, comparable to the denial of the Holocaust.47 After Sarids statement in 2000 (to be discussed in detail in chapter 7),
Israeli officials claimed that it was his personal view; nobody claimed
the same this time. It should be clear: Israel was ready, and is ready, to
bargain with the memory of the Armenian Genocide. It used the Genocide as merchandise, and by doing so Israel is ready to go beyond a
moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to cross. Israel should
never, under any circumstances, and for any reason, aid and abet those
who deny a genocide, any genocide.
But lately, Israel has gone much further. The new Israeli ambassador
in Georgia and Armenia, Rivka Cohen, repeated Peres statement in a
press conference she held on February 8, 2002 in Yerevan, the capital
of Armenia.48 She made remarks in a press conference in Yerevan to the
effect that, while the Jewish people are saddened by the deaths and
tragedy that were suffered by the Armenians between 1915 and 1916,
the Holocaust was a unique phenomenon, as it was a planned program
for the annihilation of an entire nation and nothing should be compared
129
with it. This was not reported in Israel at the beginning, but Armenians
in Armenia and all over the world were enraged. Government officials
and politicians demanded that the Ambassador be declared persona non
grata. The Armenian Council of America declared:
We categorically reject the Israeli governments policy as immoral and unprincipled. It is most abhorrent that the Israeli government would use the
Armenian Genocide as a bargaining chip towards its interests. We call on
the Jewish people, who are still reeling from the pain of the Holocaust, to
condemn the Israeli government policy regarding this issue. We ask them
to discourage the Israeli government from becoming one of those governments, which until recently were denying the Holocaust with lame excuses.49
In an unprecedented action, several hundred Armenians held a demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles.50 This also
was not reported in Israel, to the best of my knowledge.
The Foreign Ministry of Armenia made (February 15, 2002) an official note of protest to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, saying that Armenia
considers any attempt at rejecting or belittling the significance of the
Armenian Genocide as inadmissible, regardless of the motivation. Armenia never intended to draw parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, believing as we do that any crime committed against humanity is unique with its own political, legal, historical,
and moral consequences.
The official answer of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (February 18,
2002) was:
Israel has never tried to deny or diminish the reality of the events that occurred during the years 1915-1916. As Jews and as Israelis, we are especially sensitive to the human tragedies that occurred during the years 1915
and 1916, the final years of the Ottoman Empire. We understand the powerful emotions this subject arouses in both parties, considering the enormous number of victims and the great suffering undergone by the Armenian people. Investigation of this sensitive subject must be approached
through open public discussion and dialogue between historians, based of
course, on documents and facts.
Israel also asserted that the Holocaust was a singular event in human
history and was a premeditated crime against the Jewish people. Israel
recognizes the tragedy of the Armenians and the plight of the Armenian
people. However, the events cannot be compared to the Holocaust. This
does not in any way diminish the magnitude of the tragedy.51 (The Is-
130
raeli Foreign Ministry refuses to produce the exact text, claiming that
documents between countries are not published. The Ministry provided
different versions to journalists when it was asked to express the Israeli
attitude to the Armenian issue. In one case it refused to give a written
text. At another time an official from the Ministry admitted that the
Ministry [practically in the name of the State!] has different versions.
Some sources wrote that the events cannot be compared to the Holocaust and others that they cannot be compared to genocide. However,
both Peres and the ambassador had said that the events that occurred
during the years 1915-1916 cannot be compared to genocideY.A.)
The implication in the Israeli Foreign Ministrys statement is that
while the Armenian deaths of up to 1.5 million may have been a tragedy, they do not constitute a case of genocide. Another implication is
that there must be public discussion and dialogue between historians to
determine the facts of what happened to the Armenians.
There is no way to minimize the historical significance of this painful statement. Not a Holocaust, not a genocideonly victims, plight,
tragedy, massacre, without even mentioning who the perpetrators
were. There is no mention of any responsibility for the murders as if
they were some natural disaster. But there is mention of the emotional
relevance to both sidesthe Turks and the Armenians (imagine Jews
and Germans being mentioned together in the case of the Holocaust!).
And of course, mention is made of the uniqueness of the Holocaust.
There is a lot of cynicism, arrogance, self-contradiction and irresponsibility in this dangerous official statement. By it Israel took another big step from passive to active denial. And this declaration was
made by a state whose people were victims of the Holocaust only a
little over fifty years ago! It puts in question the whole significance and
relevance of historical scholarship on genocide, not to say that it desecrates the memory of the Holocaust and its significance.
In Israel the usual protests were publicly made this time, to the
best of my knowledge, only by Israel Charny and myself.52 As a Jew
and an Israeli, I am deeply ashamed of the position taken by our Ambassador and Ministry to deny that the genocide of the Armenian people
in 1915 was in fact genocide, wrote Israel Charney in a letter sent to
the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Israeli ambassador to Armenia and
other top officials. Abroad, an article entitled Playing with Memory
was published in a major Polish newspaper. It was written by Konstanty
Gebert, one of the most renowned journalists and political commenta-
131
tors in Poland and a leader of the small Polish-Jewish minority and editorin-chief of the Jewish monthly Midrash.53 Relating to Hitlers comments in
August 1939 before the invasion of Poland (Hitler was quoted as saying: It
is a matter of indifference to me what a weak West European civilization
will say about me Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians?54), the author emphasized that, first of all, Jews should remember since they are all aware of the price which could be paid for memory
shortfall. The chief rabbi of Armenias tiny (several hundred) Jewish
community, Gersh Meir Burshtein, said that: No one in Armenia should
get the impression that [the Israeli Foreign Ministrys comments] reflects
Jewish or even Israeli public opinion.55
The fact that the politicians, the media, and the academia in Israel
disregard such a significant event demonstrates the depth of moral crisis in Israels society, and how banal and easy it sometimes is to deny
a genocide. There is at least one cynical lesson from this: for a good
price, a nation can purchase a revision of its own history, even the history of an act as terrible as genocide. And more than this: a state can
purchase a revision of its history of genocide even from a government
that ought to know better than any other states what the meaning of
genocide is, its significance, the importance of its memory, and the
awful pain of its denial. As disgusting as it sounds, the exigencies of
politics today put aside the moral question for financial, economic, and
military gains.
Quite interestingly, it was reported in March 2002 that Turkey had
decided on the modernization of its 170 M-60 tanks by Israel. The total
value of the contract is about US $687 million (it came into force in
October 2002 and is considered the biggest weapons export contract
Israel has ever signed). Some cynics suggested that perhaps this was
the price for which the State of Israel had sold its integrity.56 And then,
about a week later, on April 6, 2002if it was not sad, it could have
been funnythe Turkish prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, told the Democratic Left Party (DSP) deputies that Israel was committing an act of
genocide against the Palestinians. It is quite surprising to hear such a
statement coming from the prime minister of a country that is so sensitive to the word genocide. Israel asked Ankara for an explanation
of the comments. Ecevit said his words were misunderstood. They
merely reflected his concerns over the Middle East, he added. American Jewish lobbies said that the comments were particularly unseemly
in light of their attempts to defend Turkey from Armenian claims of
132
2.
3.
The New York Times and the Jerusalem Post, June 8, 2000. The petitioners
also asked the Western democracies to urge the Government and the Parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms with a dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Yoav Karni, Battle of Politics over the Armenian Holocaust, Haaretz,
October 27, 1989.
Armenians Hail Rabbi as a Hero, Los Angeles Jewish Heritage, November 17, 1989.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
133
Jeshajahu Weinberg and Rina Elieli, The Holocaust Museum in Washington (New York: Rizzoli Publications, 1995), p. 164. The late Jeshajahu
Weinberg, an Israeli citizen, was the founder and the first director of The
Holocaust Museum in Washington.
For details, see Edward T. Linenthal, The Boundaries of Inclusion: Armenians and Gypsies in Preserving Memory (New York: Viking Press,
1995), pp.228-41, and also Amir Neuman, The Armenian Pandoras Box,
Davar, October 29, 1989 and Maariv, August 20, 1989.
Zadok Yehezkeli, The Dead Armenian and the Live Jew, Yedioth
Ahronoth, October 25, 1989.
Protocols of the Knesset, November 8, 1989.
Armenian News Network, September 29, 2000.
Letter from President Bill Clinton to Speaker of the House of Representatives Denis Hastert, October 19, 2000.
Press Release from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, October 19,
2000.
Press Release from H. Res. 596 Committee, October 19, 2000.
Nitzan Horowitz, Turks and Armenians Corner Jews in Debate over Genocide, Haaretz, September 28, 2000.
Ibid.
Zvi Barel, Armenian History Will Have to Wait, Haaretz, October 25,
2000. The original Hebrew title was quite different: Was There a Genocide?
Alan Makovsky, Turkey: The Armenian Genocide Resolution and Iraq
Policy, Policywatch number 495, October 16, 2000 (published by the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy).
Zvi Barel, op. cit.
Sedat Sertoglu, Behind the Scenes, Istanbul Sabah (Ankara Edition),
October 23, 2000.
Ibid.
Harut Sassounian, Jewish Lobby Pledges All-Out Support for Turkey
and Azerbaijan in CongressCommentary, California Courier On-Line,
August 5, 1999.
Ibid.
Protocols of the Knesset, April 27, 1994.
Ibid.
Dadrian, 1997, p. xix.
Lilly Galili, A Holocaust by Any Other Name, Haaretz, April 25, 2000.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Selcuk Gultasli, Israeli Undersecretary Liel: We Are Disappointed in
Turkey, Turkish Daily News, October 26, 2000. Dr. Alon Liel was nominated foreign ministry undersecretary a short time before the interview,
by the Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami. Later he became the general
director of the office, until March 2001the beginning of the Sharon
government.
134
135
50. Harut Sassounian, Israels Ambassador should be Expelled from Armenia, The California Courier, March 14, 2002.
51. Armenian Foreign Ministry Regrets Israeli Envoys Genocide Remarks,
Armenian News Network/Groong, February 11, 2002; Diplomatic Incident: The Ambassador was not ready to compare the Armenian Holocaust
to the Jewish Holocaust [Israeli] Ynet News Agency, February 18, 2002;
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheli, A Perplexing Indifference, Jerusalem Post,
May 3, 2002; Israel Replies to Armenian Protest Note, saying 1915 massacre was not Genocide, Armenian News Network/Groong, February 20,
2002.
52. Yair Auron, It Was Genocide, Haaretz, March 3, 2002; Israel W.
Charney, letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres.
53. Konstanty Gerbert, Playing with Memory, Gazeta Wyborcza, February
25, 2002.
54. For Hitlers comments on the Armenians, see K. B. Bardakjian, Hitler
and the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge, MA: The Zoryan Institute, 1985).
55. Jewish Leader Downplays Israeli Denial of Genocide, Armenian News
Network/Groong, February 21, 2002. It is significant to note that Rabbi
Burschtein also said that the Jewish community, for its part, is concerned
about the recent publication in Armenia of an anti-Semitic book written
by hitherto unknown Armenian authors. The book, entitled National System, identifies Jews and Turks as the leading enemies of the Armenian
nation and calls the Holocaust a myth created by Zionists. Armenian analysts noted that Armenians should not make a blanket statement against
all Jews that would unnecessarily antagonize many Jews who boldly criticize the position of the Israeli government.
56. Zvi Barel, The Best Friend Also, Haaretz, April 7, 2002; Harut
Sassounian, March 14, 2002 (op. cit.).
57. Ilnur Cevik, Genocide Mistake, Turkish Daily News, April 6, 2002;
Metehan Demir, Genocide Comment Hits Turkish-Israel Ties, The
Jerusalem Post, April 7, 2002.
58. Ariana Melamed, The Obligation to Remember, Yedioth Ahronoth, April
9, 2002.
59. Yair Auron, Supporting Denial, Haaretz, June 9, 1998.
6
Genocide Education in Israel
The entire history of the brief millennial Reich can
be reread as a war against memory, an Orwellian falsification of memory, falsification of reality, negation of reality.
Primo Levi, The Monkeys Wrench1
137
138
cept of the uniqueness of the Holocaust is not promoted to such a degree, can give us an interesting comparative perspective and a better
understanding of our main issue here: teaching about genocide (especially the Armenian Genocide) in Israel.
This chapter is divided into four sections:
a)
b)
c)
d)
139
Since then a wide range of curriculum units, teaching materials, professional publications, and conferences have been produced in the United
States to assist educators in the development of instructional units on
the Holocaust. Some of these materials have been created as part of
self-contained curricula focused solely on the Holocaust, while others
have focused on the relationship of the Holocaust to contemporary social problems, such as intolerance, prejudice, and hate crime.3
Two major Holocaust museums and research centersthe United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC,
and the Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance (established under the auspices of the Simon Wiesenthal Center) in Los Angelesopened in the
1990s. More recently (late 1990s) another one, the Museum of Jewish
HeritageA Living Memorial to the Holocaustwas established in
New York. Smaller museums and centers have been opened in many
other places. A major function of these centers is educating about the
Holocaust.
The opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in
1993 as a U.S. national museum marked a new stage in the growth of
Holocaust education. As of December 1996, there were approximately
fifty Holocaust resource centers, twelve memorials, and nineteen Holocaust museums in the United States. The expressed function of many
of the centers and museums is to conduct public outreach programs on
various aspects of the Holocaust and/or support the teaching of the
Holocaust. Many centers assist schools in developing curricula, provide in-service programs to teachers in private and public schools, and
assist teachers and students in locating speakers (including survivors
and liberators), films, and adjunct materials. Many have also developed
their own curricula.
The study of the Holocaust nowadays is interdisciplinary, drawing
upon insights and research from disciplines as disparate as theology,
history, the social and behavioral sciences, literature, the fine arts, medicine, law, and others. The extensive and rich scholarship on the Holocaust shows no signs of abating, and interest in both the history of the
period 1933-1945 and its implications for contemporary society and
government policies shows no signs of waning.
The bright side of the growing interest among educators in teaching
about the Holocaust is not without its drawbacks. It is one thing to
mandate that a topic be taught, and an altogether different situation to
actually teach it effectively (i.e., accurately, comprehensively, thor-
140
141
the Gaullist and the communist. These myths persisted for a quite a
number of years. They were at their height from the end of the war in
Algeria in 1962 until the students rebellion in 1968. Both the Gaullist
myth and the communist myth responded to the psychological and political needs of French society. They attempted to diminish the dimensions of the collaboration with the Germans and the significance of the
Vichy phenomenon, while fostering the heroic myth of the resistance
and the rebellion. This heroic vision of the communists and the Gaullists
also attempted to ignore the uniqueness of sacrifice, and the scope, of
the Jewish resistance.
Attitudes toward the Holocaust have gone through many changes
and incarnations in France. Since the second half of the 1960s, these
attitudes have been characterized by challenge, criticism, accusation,
and a demand to see justice done for the collaboration of French society regarding the deportation of Jews to the extermination camps, and
for the aid offered to the Germans in persecuting the resistance fighters
during the period of the Vichy regime.
Similarly, in the French centralized educational system, the Holocaust was practically denied during the years 1945-1960. The period of
banalization of the Holocausts teaching continued until the 1980s. In
that period, the Holocaust was taught but the system avoided dealing
with the hard questions it raises, especially the role of the French State
and its collaboration with the Nazis in the fate of French Jewry.5
There is no official history or official state schoolbook of history in
France. Editors of textbooks have to respect the program made by
ducation Nationalethe Ministry of Education. It seems that the
Armenian Genocide is rarely represented in France in high school books
where this period is studied.6 For most editors of school curricula, the
Armenian Genocide either did not happen, or should not be considered
as an event that has to be taught and remembered.
It should be asked why the study of genocide, in general, and of
specific acts of genocide (with the exception of the Holocaust) is extremely limited all over the world, including the United States. There
are numerous reasons for this: at the high-school level the subject matter is extremely complex, and many teachers and schools shy away
from controversy; teachers have not been prepared to teach this difficult subject; there is scant coverage of the topic in most textbooks, and
texts generally drive the curriculum; teachers already face an overcrowded mandated curriculum; there is a lack of well-defined support
142
to teach the subject, for example, there is a failure in providing wellplanned and thorough in-service training for those who are interested
in and/or expected to teach these issues; and in some cases there is also
a lack of interest or care on the teachers part.
A major concern all educators face when tackling a subject as complex, controversial, and horrific as genocide and genocidal acts is which
cases should be taught. Other than the centrality of the Holocaust, there
is little to no consensus on this significant issue. More often than not,
the cases of genocide that are addressed at the high school level are the
genocide of the Armenians and/or the Cambodian genocide. This is
due, in part, to the attention given those genocides by certain state curricula (e.g., California, Connecticut, and New York), as well as the fact
that resources for teaching about such genocides are more readily available than for others.
To provide a thorough understanding of such a topic, students need
to wrestle with a tangle of complex historical, political, philosophical,
sociological, and moral issues. At a minimum, the study needs not only
to address what, how, where, and when genocide happened, but also the
why. Too many current curricula, including those on the Holocaust,
neglect to address the why.
Numerous critical challenges and issues vis--vis educating about
genocide exist, and among the most significant are: a) the need for the
development of more sophisticated curricula (both content and methodology-wise), not only on the Armenian Genocide, the Ukrainian Famine (in 1932-33 between five and seven million peasants, most of them
Ukrainians, starved to death because the government of the Soviet Union
seized the 1932 crop and foodstuffs from the population), the Holocaust, and the Cambodian genocide, but also other genocidal acts; b)
the development of textbooks that address the issue of genocide and
genocidal acts in more depth; c) the need for school districts to provide
in-depth in-service training for teachers who are expected to teach about
genocide; and d) serious research in regard to what content is most
appropriate for various grade levels and student abilities, as well as
what teaching strategies are most effective in teaching this material.
In any case, the state of education regarding genocide in the new
millennium is not different from the state of Holocaust education of the
mid-1970s, and the reasons for this are similarbut not identicalto
the reasons for not teaching the Holocaust until then. We can only hope
that we will see an increase in genocide education in the coming years.
143
144
tric and goal-orientated that they did not enter into the moral dilemmas
of the very foundations of Zionist education. This nation-building project
reflected and produced a special ideological philosophy in which there
was no place, for example, for essential issues such as the rights of the
Palestinians.
After the end of World War II, Zionist historiography used knowledge about the Holocaust as part of the building of a Zionist moral
education.7 The hegemonic version of Holocaust memories became the
central educative apparatus. Historical memory was mobilized for constructing the new Jew as one whose ethnocentric collective identity
would be ensured by a particular historical memory, in which the term
Auschwitz was understood as an immanent and determinist characteristic of not realizing the essence of Judaism in its modern form
namely, strong, independent, and part of a Jewish sovereign national
state. The obligation to remember the Holocaust, (zachor), that served
for the justification of Zionist morality and practice was based on the
biblical word zachor. One context of zachor is that of war, be it against
Pharaoh or against the Amalekites, the implacable enemy who lived in
Canaan, the Promised Land, before the exodus of Israel from Egypt.
Zachor et asher asah lecha Amalek [remember what Amalek did unto
thee] (Deuteronomy 25:17) refers to the remembering of Gods command to be devoted to His teaching in order to reach the Promised Land
and to exterminate Amalek: men, women, children, and even their animals. Illan Gur-Zeev claims that:
This zachor et asher asah lecha Amalek is part of the formation of the secular halutz and sabra myth in the collective Israeli identity. The zachor, remembering of the Holocaust victims, had merged into the zachor et asher
asah lecha Amalek: the victim of Nazi Germany merged into the concept of
eternal victim, seeing every other, every goy (other people), as Amalek.
Implicitly, it means that the Amaleks just fate is to be the just fate of the
other in days to come.8
145
between religious and non-religious Zionists, on the one hand, and between the negation of the Diaspora and the affirmation of its cultural
heritage, on the other.9
In this context, a complicated task in curriculum planning was to
select those events from Diaspora history that would enhance Zionism
without breaking altogether with past traditions. It was important to
construct a heroic past based on all of Jewish history without alienating
the youth from Diaspora Jewry, for it was hoped that its members would
eventually immigrate and join the Yishuv in Palestine and, later, Israel.
The success of the Yishuv and Israel in achieving both the continuation
of Jewish tradition and the transformation of the Jewish self-image was
limited, however. In practice, Israeli youth felt superior to Diaspora
Jews and very far removed from their culture. In this context the role of
Holocaust education was very significant.
Some Israeli scholars divide the history of dealing with the issue of
the Holocaust in the formal educational institutions of Israel into periods according to their orientation. Ruth Firrer and Dalia Ofer make the
distinction between the Zionist Period (1948-1977) and the Humanistic Period, characterized by its Humanistic Approach (1979 to the
2000s).10 Firrer proposed also what might be called the intermediate
incubation years between 1961 (the Eichmann trial) and 1977including the wars of 1967 and 1973.11
The Zionist Period, 1948-1977
The incomprehensibility of the Holocaust and the possibility that
the memory of the Holocaust would fade away and knowledge about
European Jewry and its social and spiritual world would disappear were
of great concern to the Israeli political elite of the 1950s. This, they
feared, would fulfill Hitlers wish to obliterate the Jews. Yet, a sense of
unease was expressed in discussions about the teaching of the Holocaust and the ability to transmit an understanding of it to later generations. This concern derived not only from the innate incomprehensibility of the Holocaust, but also from anxiety that the terrible stories of the
Holocaust might cause emotional distress to youngsters, as well as from
the denigration with which Israeli youth treated Jewish history in the
Diaspora in general, and the Holocaust in particular. Many young Israeli students had negative stereotypes of Diaspora Jewry that were supported by the Israeli Hebrew literature they studied. Much of modern
146
147
Even after the Eichmann trial and throughout the 1960s, the Ministry did not initiate any methodical program for the study of the Holocaust. It was suggested that a few lessons would be dedicated to the
subject in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies,
and that the issue of the Holocaust would be studied partly in each
course in the humanities, particularly history and literature. A few collections of documents, abstracts, and segments of articles published by
Yad Vashem were offered to the teachers, and exhibitions, mostly of
photographs along with some documentation, were assembled and displayed in school lobbies and libraries during the week of Holocaust
Remembrance Day.
The Humanistic Approach, 1978 to the 2000s
During the 1970s, the educational systems interest in teaching the
Holocaust increased markedly. This was the outcome of various political and social developments after the wars of 1967 and 1973. The two
experiences had caused deep anxiety and fear, and their frequent comparison to the Holocaust made by the media in and out of Israel brought
educators and historians to realize how inadequate their knowledge of
the Holocaust was. The increasing interest in the Holocaust can also be
related to a deep problem of identity, as we elaborated in chapter 1.
Faced with increasing criticism of its curriculum planning, the Ministry of Education could no longer avoid creating a structured Holocaust curriculum. The ongoing expansion of scholarship on the Holocaust provided more suitable books for teachers and made more
knowledge available. The university graduates who had studied the Holocaust in an academic framework became a new generation of teachers
who were able to introduce changes into the teaching of the Holocaust.
In the early 1970s, a new trend in curriculum planning was introduced by the Ministry of Education. In the context of teaching about
the Holocaust three major approaches emerged. The first emphasized
the need to strengthen Zionist identity through the subject of the Holocaust. The main message was that the Jews had not seen the writing on
the wall because of their false hopes concerning Jewish emancipation.
The events of the Holocaust destroyed these illusions forever, and thus
the existence of Israel embodied the lesson learned from the Holocaust. The establishment of the State of Israel was the miraculous manifestation of both the Holocaust and Zionism.
148
149
!
!
67%
35%
17%
10%
8%
3%
0.8%
0.2%
The few who answered that the Holocaust should not be taught explained it by reasons such as: we have to be optimistic; not to frighten
our children; and to teach more modern subjects. Nevertheless, the
mention of humanistic reasons for teaching the Holocaust was very
limited.
To sum up, even though I accept, in principal, the chronological distinction between the Zionist period and the humanistic period, I
have reservations as to the definition of the second period as a humanistic period or a humanistic approach. Three facts should be mentioned regarding this period that reveal the ongoing Zionist-oriented
face of this attitude. First, the State Educational Law of 1953, which
established the goals of the educational system in Israel, was changed
only once, in 1980, when the Knesset decided to add the following
150
statement: The goal of the state educational system is to base education in the state on the consciousness and the memory of the Holocaust
and heroism. The spirit of the change in the State Education Law is
clear: to base or to foster the consciousness and the memory of the
Shoah and heroismfrom a Jewish-Zionist perspectiveas was the
case in the law of Yad Vashem in 1953.
Second, even in the humanistic period, the Holocaust was taught
(until 1999) in the framework of Jewish history, which was separated
from general history. These aspects limit by definition the scope of
the humanistic approach.
Third, the visits to Poland of high school students since the late 1980s
do not foster the humanistic approach, but rather the particularistic
one. They foster the Zionist perspective and sometimesto a lesser
degreea Jewish perspective. The visits to Poland are perhaps the ultimate example of the goals of teaching and mourning in combination
with each other.
Essentially, the major dilemmas facing the teaching of the Holocaust in Israel are similar to the dilemmas generally faced by all pedagogues in all subjects: why to teach, what to teach, and how to teach;
what the student has to remember;, how to help him to remember; when
to teach; and when to remember. In all cases, the danger is in transforming the Holocaust into an instrument, a means, rather than an end
in itself. Effectively, in my opinion, the Holocaust is not over-taught or
over-commemorated in Israel. Rather it is being used for too many goals
of Zionist ideology, i.e. renewing the sense of Zionism and Israeli pride
among young Israelis. Therefore, other victims of the Nazis and other
genocides are rarely mentioned in Israel.
Concerning teaching other occurrences of genocide in general, and
the Armenian Genocide in particular, there has been practically no
change over the years, at least in the official attitude. We will turn to
analyze this topic now.
Teaching about Genocide in Israel
In the following paragraphs we will describe and analyze two controversies regarding teaching and remembering other genocides in the
Israeli educational system. The first concerns a study program, and the
second deals with a Memorial Day ceremony for the Holocaust held in
one school.
151
152
153
Later it was decided that the program would be prepared first and
foremost for use as an optional unit for matriculation in history within
the framework of one semester for high school students. A team was set
up to draft the program and the Ministry of Education funded the project.
The team set a goal of formulating the program within one year, writing and publishing a textbook for the students and an accompanying
teachers guide, and preparing a group of teachers who would be ready to
teach the course on a trial basis in the following year. All this we were able to
accomplish in a relatively short period of time. We also decided to develop
the program on a modular basis, so that teachers would be able to use parts of
the program in conjunction with other related topics. For example, devoting
a few lessons to the Armenian Genocide while studying the history of the
First World War; discussing events in Rwanda or Bosnia in Home Room
periods; or introducing a lesson or two on the Roma within the framework
of Holocaust studies. (While studying the Holocaust, students often raise
the question: and what about the Roma? Few are the teachers who are
able to answer the question in a serious manner, as we will see later on.)
During the summer of 1994, the team and outside lecturers taught a
short course on the topic at Seminar Hakibbutzim College of Education, in which more than forty high school teachers participated. At the
end of the course, seven of those teachers opted to teach the study program on an experimental basis during the second semester of the coming school year (1995), and at the initiative of the group it was decided
to continue meeting during the fall semester, in order to widen their
knowledge of the subject. The program was presented from the outset
as part of a large history curriculum for high school students who specialized in history (a very small group), in which the school had the
choice of whether or not to include the program. It was one of nineteen
programs proposed to them that year.
Everything was set to begin implementing the program in midDecember 1994, with both the blessing and the support of the Ministry of Education. A few weeks before the program was to commence, the director of the Pedagogical Secretariat informed the
special committee (the highest pedagogic panel) that the minister
154
155
Vahakn N. Dadrian, to supposedly prove that much of the Armenian documentation of the genocide was based upon forgeries. The
Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, headed by Israel Charny,
considered suing the Ministry of Education.
It is precisely against this attempt to justify acts of genocide that we
protest. Even if there were actions by individual groups of Armenians
against the Turkish authorities, there is not, and cannot be, at any time,
a justification for the malicious murder of unarmed and defenseless
women, children, the elderly, or for that matter the unrestrained killing of
Armenian soldiers serving in the Turkish army, who were disarmed and
shot in wholesale massacres. It is also important for us, as Israelis, to
remember that at the same time the massacre of the Armenians was happening in Turkey, the Ottoman Empire ruled with a heavy hand in Palestine. During the First World War a pro-British Jewish underground group,
NILI, operated in Palestine, and leading ZionistsTrumpeldor,
Jabotinsky, and Ben Gurion among othersorganized the Jewish Legion
at the end of the First World War to fight against the Ottoman Empire.18
Had those actions led to a massacre of the Yishuv, would the Academic
History Committee have also felt a need to speak of Jewish provocation?
It should be noted that in the proposed textbook we did in fact deal
with claims that the massacres were a reaction against provocation
of the victims. Nevertheless, our conclusion was clear:
There is no doubt of the proof, based on different and various sources from
the period, that the comprehensive mass extermination of the civilian population in various regions of Turkey (and certainly not just in the battle zone)
was carried out at the indisputable order of Turkish authorities in
Constantinople. While certain facts and details can be legitimately debated,
and some of the Armenian claims about genocide can be questioned, the
historical sources, only a small part of which have been mentioned in this
survey, create an unequivocal and unshakable picture. (Unless there has
been some fantastic conspiracy to invent thousands of documents and reports from various sources in differing countries, including the United States
which was neutral, and Germany and Austria, who were allies of the Turks,
and to fabricate hundreds of newspaper items in numerous countries)
The term genocide did not exist, we should remember, at the time the
atrocities were committed against the Armenians, but what the Young Turks
did to the Armenians was indeed genocide. Again, one can argue with some
of the facts, details, or circumstances, but there can be no doubt about the
fact of the genocide itself. In this sense, the denial of the Armenian Genocide is very similar to the denial of the Holocaust of the Jews.19
156
The reaction of the Armenian community in Israel to the rejection of the program was one of great disappointment:20
We regret that the protocols of the meeting of 1.19.1995, held in the Ministry of Education of Israel to review the merits of the book of Dr. Yair
Auron, almost reflect in its tone the Turkish official line.
One has the painful impression that Prof. Abitbul [the chairman of the
Committee] is sitting as an erudite judge in a tribunal passing a verdict on
the genocide of another nation. It is not hard to detect a vicious attack on
the textbook project of Dr. Auron, who spent more than six years in the
state archives of Israel, France and U.S., exploring the roots and facts of the
Armenian Genocide.
Prof. Abitbul in the same cynical tone permits himself to call the Armenian massacres controversial and concludes that as long as Turkish archives are not opened there will be question marks about other sources.
He questions, like some Turkish scholars, the cold-blooded decision of the
genocide. He goes on, in the midst of this discussion an issue comes forth.
Were the massacres of 1915 a result of a conscious and declared policy by
the Turkish government or was it a result of conditions and of local initiatives without any intention from the top? Then he authoritatively makes
another discoverythe research proves that there was no connection between the massacres of 1894-96 and the massacres of 1915.
Abitbul claims that the Turks protected Armenians in Syria and Lebanon and Jerusalem (a total of 10,000 people at the time), and Protestants
and Catholics.
We would recommend him not to rely on Turkish sources but rather to
do his homework in European archives. Actually the genocide was indiscriminate and neither Armenian Catholics nor the Armenian Protestants
were spared.
Prof. Abitbul recommends that Dr. Auron should have consulted Ziya
Gkalp, the equivalent of consulting Goering. It is shocking that the board
passed the decision to disqualify the textbook compiled by Dr. Auron unanimously.
Contrary to the opinion of the board, independent experts consider the
contents of the textbook of Dr. Auron as meeting all decent academic criteria.
Dr. Auron is a highly competent historian who enjoys the respect of academic
circles the world over. His initiative deserved encouragement and appreciation.
We regret to state that this document called The Protocols of the Meeting of 19/1/1995 is a disgrace to the Ministry of Education. It is scandalous that these protocols were distributed to the general public. A gift from
Prof. Abitbul to the Armenian people on their 80th anniversary year.
With few exceptions there is a sad situation prevailing in Israel on the
issue of the Armenian Genocide. We deplore that an Institute like Yad
Vashem, which is committed to uphold principles of integrity, has a public
negative attitude towards the Armenian Genocide.
157
158
pretation of the events that occurred in the years 1915-1916. The main
controversy is between the Armenians and the Turks regarding the figures
of the murder, about the degree of accountability of the Turkish government for the murder, and about using the term genocide for describing
the murder of the Armenians. In the beginning of World War I, and
especially following the defeat of the Turkish army, there existed a deep
tension between the Turks and the Armenians. The deportation and the
murder of the years 1915-1916 are the result of this tension.22
159
senior scholars (among them Prof. Lifton, the author of a book about the
Nazi doctors in Auschwitz) in an international review that I edited [Holocaust and Genocide StudiesYA]. My Israeli colleagues, who attach the
same importance to the facts and their denial, are not worthy experts on
this issue and undermine their own academic status.
Israel W. Charny, the executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, also wrote a letter of condemnation
to the editor of Haartz:
Amnon Rubinstein, the Minister of Education, should be ashamed for his
tragic surrender to the forces of realpolitik and the joining of his Ministry
with the deniers of genocide. The fact that this genocide happened to people
different than us does not affect the severity of this moral distortion.
The fact that the official educational leadership of our nation that has
known persecution, racism and worst of all the Holocaust, takes part in
the denial of the holocaust of other people is shameful.25
160
Armenians, which he constantly calls genocide, as distinct from the Jewish Holocaust, was presented as an historical fact that had to be learned
and whose moral implications had to be elaborated and taught in light of
universal humanist morality. In the new program, even in the Introduction,
the fate of the Armenians at the beginning of this century is not presented as
historical fact. The new program embraces the concept that there is no room
for humanistic moral education in a history lesson. The anonymous author
[as the name of the author was never indicated] writes as if the matter is a
debate among neutral, objective experts from various schools of history.26
At the same time that this Ministrys new course was being taught,
an elective course on Genocide in the 20th Century, based upon the original study program, was being implemented at one high school
Ramat Hefer Regional High School in the Sharon Regionand has
been taught since 1995. The private initiative to teach the program
was taken by the schools history teacher, and received the approval
of the authorities of that school.
In February 1996, a reporter for the then daily, Davar Sheni, interviewed the teachers and students of both programs. His article conveyed strong criticism of the Ministrys program both from teachers
who taught the course and from the pupils who studied it. One pupil is
quoted saying: The textbook is boring, and added I dont understand
why the study program doesnt present the subject as genocide. This
new program, which was supposed to correct the pedagogical failings
and the supposed flaws of the original one, was described by one teacher
as being on a very low level, starting with printing errors and ending
with factual errors, adding that it appears to me that neither thought
nor effort were put into it.27
In Ramat Hefer Regional High School, where the original program
was taught, students were encouraged to analyze the Armenian Genocide in a contemporary contexti.e. to also deepen their understanding of the recent genocidal acts in Rwanda and Bosnia. The teacher of
the program was very pleased with it and with the results achieved. The
pupils, as well, expressed much satisfaction with the course. They stated
that they felt that they now had a better understanding of events that
were happening in the present; they felt that they had developed a greater
sensitivity to the suffering of others; and they believed that in the future
they will be more aware and involved in what is happening in the world.
The teacher at Ramat Hefer Regional High School, who has taught the
subject since 1995 in accordance with the original study, said from the
161
162
the high point of our activities was the contact we had made with the
Armenian community in Jerusalem, and the cooperation between the school
and the community to promote awareness of this issue. Our students visited
the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem several times and Armenian students
regularly attended our school lectures by Armenian as well as Israeli speakers.
In 1998 a group of Armenian representatives attended the schools Holocaust
memorial service and the following day representatives from the school
attended the memorial service for the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
Both of these services were shown on an Israeli television program.32
163
mentioned at all, or mentioned only slightly in the Israeli curricula. They are sometimes defined the other victimsa problematic definition in some aspects: others for whom? Toward
whom? While teaching about the Holocaust we should ask ourselves in what ways we should approach, and how much time we
should dedicate to, the non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime:
Roma, homosexuals, political prisoners, Poles, Russian prisoners of war, the mentally ill, Jehovahs Witnesses.
It is quite significant that even in such a comprehensive book as HistoriesTowards a Dialogue with the Israeli Past, which deals with the
history of teaching history in the State of Israel, and which analyzes in
detail the debates over the teaching of the Holocaust, the debates over
the inclusion of other genocides are almost completely absent. There is
one sentence about the Armenians (the authors use the term Armenian
Holocaust), and nothing at all about the Roma.33 The presentation of
any genocide in any textbook is very influential in forming attitudes
and perceptions about it. It has a long-term impact on the populations
view of the subject. Textbooks in general are considered in Israel as
being very influential. For example, in 2000 a public debate emerged
after the decision of Education Minister Yossi Sarid to include a small
number of poems by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in the
new high school literature curriculum.
What can an Israeli high school student learn about the Armenian
Genocide through his regular textbooks? The answer is quite clear: practically nothing. For example, let us look at the new textbook, Change
and Progress in Israel and the Nations in the New Era34a history
curriculum for a student in the junior and senior years of high school,
which is written according to the new study program of the Ministry
of Education and is used widely in Israel. In more than 300 pages
there are about two-and-a-half sentences that mention the Armenian
massacrethe term genocide is never usedtherefore even as a
term it is not known by many of young Israelis. The book states that
the Sultan Abd Al-Hamid II was named the Red Sultan after his
soldiers committed a horrible massacre against the Armenian population in the nineties [of the nineteenth century] (p. 123). Further on
(page 126), the book refers to the Pan-Turanist policy of the Young
Turks that led to the revival of Arab nationalism and to a flourishing of
Turkish fanatics that caused the terrible Armenian massacres of 1909
and 1915.
164
165
Most high school and university students think that the Holocaust is
a unique phenomenonan attitude that is quite understandable. What
is shocking is the fact that they know almost nothing about other cases
of genocide. They say that the Holocaust is unique without even thinking about the fact that one can reach this conclusion only after comparing the Holocaust to other cases. Many in Israel reject even the idea of
comparison.
The meaning of these findings is very clear: If an Israeli student
does not learn a thing about the Armenian Genocide during his BA
studies, he has no chance to learn about it in his advanced studies, be it
MA or Ph.D.no matter what subject or discipline he studies. Maybe
somebody will mention it occasionally, but to the best of my knowl-
166
edge there is not a single course taught in the Israeli academy that
deals systematically with the subject. From these students who practically know nothing or almost nothing emerge the future elite of
Israeli societythe judges, the artists, the authors, the politicians,
the intellectuals, the educators...
Awareness of Worlds Suffering: Different Attitudes
Our Holocaust and the Holocaust of Others is how the Israeli
writer Amos Elon titled his 1978 article concerning the controversy
over the Israeli television film on the Armenian community in Old
City of Jerusalem (see chapter 8). This title reflects the common
attitude in Israel concerning other genocides, including, of course,
the Armenian. This is one of the two main factors that influence
Israeli attitudes toward the Armenian case. The second factor is, as
mentioned, the relationship between Israel and Turkey.
These two factors influenced the different attitudes in Israel regarding teaching the Armenian Genocide. On January 15, 1995,
Amnon Rubinstein, the minister of education, sent a letter to the
editor of Maariv, titled by him or the editor Not a Political Decision.38 This was done during the controversy around the program
Awareness of Worlds Suffering. In the letter he said, The fact
that Jews were persecuted and murdered, as no other people ever
were, obliges us to be more sensitive to the suffering of others. The
moral of the Holocaust is both Jewish and universal. Rubinstein
says that he is against all the attempts to belittle the murder of European Jewry. He admits that there are attempts to relate the Shoah with
malice or in a superficial fashion. He does not say whether he includes
the original program about the Armenian Genocide in the attempt to
belittle the Holocaust but continues to say that because of this and
because of the initial harsh reaction of Yad Vashem against the program, he asked to be informed before the final approval. According to
Haaretz (December 23, 1994) in an article written by Rovik Rosenthal,
Yad Vashem was against the program because it includes, so claimed
by Yad Vashem, an attempt to compare or to connect the Holocaust to
the Armenian Genocide.39 Rubinstein is quoted in that article as saying: I also think that the Shoah should not be compared to any other
genocide and this distinction has to be clear. Rovik Rosenthal in
Haaretz adds: In the program there is no comparison or connec-
167
168
cide that Yad Vashem was involved in dealt with the question of the
uniqueness of the Holocaust, and the mention of the Armenian
Genocide, in a film project about the Holocaust (see chapter 9).
Contrary to these references, Yad Vashem claimed that it did not
interfere in past discussions and has officially approved the intention of the minister of education, Yossi Sarid, in April 2000, to include genocide in general, and the Armenian Genocide in particular, in the high school curriculum (Press Release of Yad Vashem,
April 24, 2000).
Yet, one should not have the impression that the refusal to deal with
other genocides based on the uniqueness of the Holocaust was limited
only to Yad Vashem. After the first information about the new program
became public, an editorial in the Jerusalem Post (Teaching the Holocaust, February 24, 1994) strongly attacked the program:
To make her [Anne Frank] just another victim of persecution is to desecrate
the memory of six million. By planning to incorporate Armenian and Gypsy
history [not genocideY.A.] into the study of the Holocaust, the Ministry
of Education is committing a similar sacrilege.
It is quite interesting to see, once again, how the very basic facts regarding the program were distorted, purposely or not, by its critics. There
was never any intention, not to speak of a plan, to incorporate the genocides of the Armenians or the Roma into the study of the Holocaust.
This was not the only article on the issue in the Jerusalem Post. An interesting discussion appeared there in 1995 concerning the high school curriculum. Yitzchak Kerem, a historian of modern Greek and Ottoman history,
as well as the Holocaust, published an article titled The Armenian Catastrophe and sub-titled There was no Turkish plan to annihilate a
people.43 Kerem supported the decision of the Education Ministry. He
repeated the Turkish arguments and wrote: Undoubtedly, there were
deaths and atrocities on both sides, but calling the deaths of Armenians genocide is an exaggeration When 700,000 Armenians were
169
relocated by the Turks in 1917, some 300,000 died. This was their
tragedy. After using such terms as catastrophe, massacre, and
tragedy, Kerem concluded his article by declaring that: One thing
is clear: the Armenian massacre of 1915 cannot be equated with the
Holocaust.
In The Armenian Holocaust, an article published in Haaretz,
Israel Charny claimed that you can not struggle against denying
one genocidethe Holocaustwhile supporting the denial of another.44 He emphasized that in the controversy concerning the rejection of Sensitivity to World Suffering, there was revisionist
argumentation (questioning the reality of the event) that penetrated
the Israeli academy and that has unfortunately similar lines to the
revisionist argumentation regarding our Holocaust. He mentioned,
apart from Kerems article, what had been said (according to the
official protocol) by none other than the head of the History Committee of the Ministry of Education, Michel Abitbul, who denied
the basic evidence related to the Armenian Genocide. Charny also
published an article for the Jerusalem Post protesting against the
attitude of the newspaper concerning the curriculum, saying that
you can not struggle against revisionist ideas regarding the Holocaust and have revisionist ideas concerning another genocide. The
editor at first refused to publish the article and finally published
only part of it as a letter to the editor. 45
The Jerusalem Post also published an article by Yosef Goell, Let Us
Erase this Shame, which attacked the decision of the Ministry of Education and Kerems article. Goell wrote that there was some merit to
the Committees criticism of the curriculum, but not for the outright
killing of an entire pilot program.46 He pointed out that:
What worries me is that a committee of learned historians, so strict in their
criteria, hasnt managed to come up with their own historically rigorous treatment of one of the most important historical phenomena of this century.
Even more worrisome is the remark by one professor, a committee member, which explains that failure. The aim of the program, he said, is to teach
sensitivity to suffering in the world. I can not accept that as being a legitimate
aim of teaching history. We are not in the business of fostering sensitivities, but
of teaching. Educating youngsters towards values and toward taking stands is
the province of youth movements and other informal social settings.
170
The editor, it should be mentioned, took out the last sentence of Tanter:
The moral ground is the only place to stand on this issue. If not the
Jews, who?48
Kerem did not give up. In a letter to the editor he attacked Tanter and
Auron, saying that the five letters of Morgenthaus (the American ambassador who struggled for the Armenians in Turkey during the genocide) published in the curriculum are forged and the real letters appear
in the book of the Princeton scholar Dr. Heath Lowry, entitled, The
Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau.49 Kerem, as well as some other
Israeli academics (see chapter 9), repeat Turkish publications that claim
Henry Morgenthaus diaries and letters were forged.
Kerem repeated other denial arguments and raised another argument related to the Holocaust: When Tanter and numerous other
academics learn about the active role of Armenians from Germany,
Greece and the Caucasus in Nazi war crimes involving the murders of
171
172
173
come an international and political issue. It turned into an even bigger issue especially after the declaration of Minister of Education
Yossi Sarid on April 24, 2000 regarding his intention to include the
Armenian Genocide in the high school curriculum (see chapter 7).
Let us sum up who were the other people or institutions that
were involved in the debate over the curriculum, and who avoided
it. The Israeli political elite was not involved in the discussion. The
issue was not discussed in the Israeli Parliament or its committee of
education. Probably, the fact that the minister of education was a
left-wing party member and had a liberal record influenced this
inaction one way or the other. Eventually some members of the
Knesset tried to interfere, but not publicly. One exception was the
activity of the minister of absorption, Yair Zaban, who publicly criticized the decision of his colleague (Zaban and Rubinstein belong
to the same partyMeretz).
The media, on the other hand, dealt relatively frequently with the
discussions about the program. As we will see, the first long item on
national TV (IBA) concerning the Armenian Genocide was related to
the debate, and was aired on the Friday evening news program on April
22, 1994. After this report the issue of Israels attitude towards the Armenian Genocide was raised even in the Israeli Parliamentbut not in
its educational aspect. Many articles and reports appeared in newspapers and many radio stations also dealt with the subjectin general
they criticized the decision of the Ministry of Education.
The academically independent Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem organized a conference regarding the question of teaching the Armenian
Genocide in Israel. A previous conference, which was supposed to take
place at the Van Leer Institute in 1990, commemorating seventy-five
years since the Armenian Genocide, had been canceled, probably due
to some degree of governmental pressure. As we have seen, some individual scholars from the academy took a public position against the
decision of the Ministry of Education. Some sent letters to the minister
and some sent letters to the editor of the program.
The small Armenian community in Israel (the great majority
live in the Armenian quarter in the old city of Jerusalem) was
very hesitant during the earlier debates concerning Israels attitude towards the Armenian Genocide. This time, they publicly
proclaimed their criticism. During the years 1994-1997, Israeli
Armenians demonstrated four times against the Israeli attitude
toward their genocide in the Israeli (western) part of Jerusalem,
174
and another time in Tel Aviv. Perhaps the significance of the educational sphere influenced their behavior. The fact that Jewish-Israeli
citizens struggled for this issue encouraged them to express their
attitudes and feelings and even to actually protest. But we have to
keep in mind that the Armenian community in Israel is extremely
small and has no political influence. The power of the Armenian
lobby in comparison to the Turkish lobby (inside and outside Israel) is practically, as mentioned, non-existent. In the struggle between sensitivity to the worlds suffering versus political sensitivities, the political sensitivities certainly have the upper hand.
Alternative Holocaust Memorial Ceremonies in Israel
The Holocaust is not only taught in the Israeli educational system; it is also memorialized there. The Holocaust ceremonies and
the memorial ceremonies for the victims of Israels wars, as we
have seen, have had a very great impact upon young Israelis over
the years. The Israeli Holocaust memory and the Holocaust ceremonies are practically exclusiveonly Jewish victims are memorialized and mentioned. It is, therefore, very relevant to mention
some alternative Holocaust memorials, where efforts to remember
non-Jewish victims were made.
(a) An Alternative Holocaust Ceremony
Another debate in the educational sphere concerned the Holocaust Memorial Day of 1995 at the Kedema School. This school
was established in 1994 in the Hatikva working class neighborhood
of southern Tel-Aviv, as a project led by a group of radical Mizrahim
(oriental, or Sephardic Jews, originating from Arab countries). Its
aim was to enable Mizrahi youth to complete academic high school
while cultivating their cultural identity and their awareness of the
oppression of the Mizrahim. The debate over the Holocaust Memorial Day at Kedema had components that were related to inter-ethnic
relations in Israel. That is the tension between what is considered the
hegemonic Ashkenazi Israeli elite (originating from European countries) and the challengeothers would say the threatthat Kedema
represented to the educational and political establishment. (The
Kedema School in Tel-Aviv was closed in 1999, but another Kedema
School continues to function successfully in Jerusalem).55
175
On the eve of the Holocaust Memorial Day of 1995, it was decided at Kedema High School in Tel Aviv to move beyond the customary ceremony and to emphasize the issues of racism, human
suffering, and the universal lesson of the Holocaust. To that end, a
seventh ceremonial torch was added to the six ceremonial torches,
symbolizing the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
A text written by the principal of Kedema, Sami S. Chetrith, was
read out by a Holocaust survivor and a seventh ceremonial torch was
lit, in memory of other groups and nations who had been murdered:
We, Jews of the third generation since the nations liberation and independence, with great reverence, wish to share the fire of the torches in memory
of the six million Jews, who perished in the Nazi Holocaust, with an additional torch, a seventh one, to be displayed for the entire world to see.
We have the tragic privilege of standing here to remember and to forewarn: no nation, no culture and no group of people is immune to hatred,
racism, persecution or extermination. Xenophobia, persecuting and annihilating the other, is a social phenomenon, which could infect any society,
at any time.
We do not intend, God forbid, to mitigate the pain of the memory of our
people, nor do we wish to compare one Holocaust to another.
Our only wish is to remind all human beings that persecution and extermination of the other is a man-made monster, created by the hands and
minds of human beings, as other nations, races and members of different
religions and ethnic groups have learned throughout the history of mankind. We must remember that only Man can overcome this terrible monster. We, the offspring of the survivors of the most terrible catastrophe of
all, today, standing here with heads held on high, pray for peace and fraternity between nations, religions, races and cultures.
The news report about the unusual format of the ceremony at Kedema
School brought strong and contradictory reactions in its wake. The rightwing Beitar Youth Movement held a demonstration in front of the school
on Holocaust Memorial Day, to protest against what they saw as
the undermining of the unique Jewish character of the Holocaust.56
Member of Knesset (who later became a minister, and is currently
minister of education in Sharons government) Limor Livnat (Likud)
criticized the school by claiming that, We Jews have one day a year in
which we can identify with the people who were victimized, just because they were Jews, and that day has to be unique. Livnat had emphasized the National-Zionist context of the Holocaust Memorial Day,
and thus went on to claim that the principal of Kedema wanted to
176
177
locaust from a universal point of view while, at the same time, emphasizing the unique significance it had for the Jewish people. He
claimed that on such a day, when all eyes were focused on the
Jewish people, we, as Jews, had the rare opportunity to remind the
entire world and ourselves that racism and xenophobia are manmade monsters, created by human beings.
The following discussion, however, did not focus on the significance
of the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony or its nature, but on the question of whether Kedema and its membersparents, teachers, and studentshad the right to digress from the traditional State ceremony and
decide for themselves on its nature. Some parents opposed any change
whatsoever, among them parents who claimed that neither they nor the
school had the authority to do so. These parents explained their reluctance, saying that since neither they nor their families had experienced
the Holocaust, they should be asked, without specifying who were
the they who had the authority to approve the change in the ceremony.
Another claim was that the status of the school was, as yet, not well
established and, therefore, any step that could arouse criticism or opposition should be avoided.
Holocaust Memorial Day was held two days later. In the ceremony six
ceremonial torches were lit and the text that accompanied the lighting of the
seventh torch in the previous year was read out. The participants were invited to light their own seventh torch, and so some of them did.
The ceremony at Kedema School in 1995 differed from the customary one only by the addition of a seventh torch. Nevertheless, it
caused such strong reactions, since it dared to question the meaning
of the national memory as a whole and, therefore, also challenged the
essence of Israeli identity. Holocaust Commemoration Day, which
comes in the midst of a sequence of national celebration and memorial
days, touches the roots of the Zionist ethos and the manner in which
it was institutionalized within the framework of the state.59
As has been mentioned, an important issue concerning the
memory of the Holocaust is the relation and the tension between
particularism versus universalism. From this point of view, Kedemas
particularism might in fact promote universalism.
It is significant to mention that a similar idea was supported by Rabbi
Irving Greenberg. Greenberg was the director of the U.S. presidents
commission created in 1979 that dealt with the characteristics of the
Holocaust in American memory, including the United States Holocaust
178
Memorial Museum. Later he was the Council chairman of the museum. In 1979 he supported a proposal that an Armenian minister,
Reverend Vartan Hartunian, deliver a prayer for the dead at the end of
the ceremony of the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust in the
White House, and that an Armenian-American, Alex Manoogian, light
a seventh candle to memorialize victims of all genocide around the
world. To the commission staff, Greenberg wrote, the seventh candle
was an appropriately distinguished analogy, particularly since the end
result was a seven-branched fully lit menorah (candelabrum, which is
also the symbol of the State of IsraelY.A.). However, the inclusion
and associations were sharply criticized by a number of important figures in Holocaust commemoration in the State of Israel.60 The different, or rather the contradictory, attitudes towards the inclusion of the
memory of other victims groups raise difficult questions. There
are Jewsprobably most Israeliswho refuse the inclusion of the
memory of other victim groups, whereas others argue that this inclusion does not belittle the memory of the Jewish victims, but enlarges and gives deeper significance to it.
(b) A Proposal for a Memorial to the Victims of Genocide
Another unique idea in this context was proposed in Israel in 1995
by Zvika Dror, member of Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetatot (The Ghetto
Fighters)a kibbutz that was founded by Holocaust survivors, many
of whom were in the underground against the Naziswho conducted
interviews and edited the volume Dapei Eduth [Pages of Witness].61
Dror proposed building in Israel a memorial to the victims of
twentieth century genocides. He wrote that for us, the Jews, the
Holocaust and the genocides that were committed against other
peoples are not the same. Every people mourns its own victims,
laments and commemorates its own relatives. The commemoration
of the Jewish victims has become part of the Jewish cultural heritage. We, rightly, ask other peoples to recognize the depth of our
tragedy. But, he wrote, we are part of humanity. We can not be
indifferent to any human suffering. When we avoid dealingsome
intentionally, some because of misunderstanding, some because of
simple indifference to death inflicted on other peopleswe impair
the character of our own memory. Dror suggested the creation of a
memorial center and he even drew some architectural plans for it
and proposed that the monument should be close to the Tel-Aviv
179
180
Primo Levi, The Monkeys Wrench (New York: Summit Books, 1986), p.
31.
This paragraph is based on the entry Education about the Holocaust and
Genocide, written by Samuel Totten and William R. Fernekes, Encyclopedia of Genocide (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999), edited by Israel W.
Charny, pp. 194-208.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
181
As of 1995, five states (California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New
York) have mandated the teaching of the Holocaust in their public schools.
Ten other states (Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington) either recommended or encouraged their public school personnel to teach
about the Holocaust. In 1995, the state of Nevada created a Council to develop resources and teacher training programs on the Holocaust. Among these
states, some have either developed state guidelines (California), a curriculum
on the Holocaust and/or genocide where usually the Holocaust is the major
subject (Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia), or a study guide (Georgia). Employing a
different approach, Tennessee has established a Holocaust Commission,
whose charge is to commemorate the Holocaust through education.
The book The World Reacts to the Holocaust, edited by Wyman in 1996
(op. cit.) enables us to examine this subject in a comparative perspective.
Henry Rousso, Le syndrome de Vichy (Paris: Seuil, 1990).
See Hlne Straplias, Quelle place pour le gnocide des Armniens dans
les livres denseignement secondaire, Lactualit du Gnocide des
Armniens, (Paris: Edipol, 1999), pp. 353-360.
Illan Gur-Zeev, The Morality of Acknowledging/Not Acknowledging the
Others Holocaust/Genocide, Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 27, No. 2,
1998, p. 164.
Ibid, p. 165.
Dalia Ofer, 1996, op. cit., pp. 889-890.
The following paragraph is based mainly on Ofer, 1996, pp. 890-894, and
Firer, 1989, pp. 177-187.
Ruth Firer, 1989, op. cit., p. 190.
Yad Vashems survey, 1999, op. cit.
Due to my deep personal involvement in this controversy, I will try to be
exceptionally careful in presenting the events in this case (Y.A.). The
following paragraph is based largely on a lecture given by Dr. Ariel
Hurwitz, a member of the team that was set up to draft the program, which
included also Orly Tzarfati and myself.
Official protocol of the meeting held on November 11, 1993, the Ministry
of Education, December 20, 1993.
The Pedagogical Secretariat, Ministry of Education, December 28, 1993.
Shift supervisor for history curriculum, the Pedagogical Secretariat, Ministry of Education, a letter to the history teachers, December 7, 1994.
Official protocol of the meeting held on January 19, 1995, the Pedagogical Secretariat, Ministry of Education.
For details, see Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference, 2000, op. cit.
Yair Auron, Awareness of Worlds SufferingGenocide in the 20th Century (Experimental Edition) (Tel Aviv: Kibbutzim College of Education,
1994), pp. 43-44.
The Armenian Case Committee, Our response to the protocols of the
meeting of the Board of the Ministry of Education of Israel which de-
182
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
183
184
On March 8, 1979, he wrote to Dr. Dicran Berberian, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly, I know that Jews and Armenians unfortunately share in common the experience of being the victims of genocide.
61. Zvika Dror, Dapei EdutPages of Testimony: 96 Members of Kibbutz
Lochamei Hagettaot Tell Their Story (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,
1984).
62. See in details, Yair Auron, 2000, op. cit., pp. 304-305.
63. Zvika Dror, To the Memory of the victims of Genocide in the 20th Century, DapimJournal of Kibbutz Lochamei Hagettaot, January 6, 1995.
He raised the idea again in 2001.
7
A Moralistic-Humanistic Attitude:
Sarids Statement, 2000
I join you, members of the Armenian community, on your Memorial Day, as you mark the eighty-fifth anniversary of your
genocide. I am here, with you, as a human being, as a Jew, as
an Israeli, and as education minister of the State of Israel.
Israeli Minister of Education, Yossi Sarid, April 24, 2000
During the debate in 1989 over the involvement of the State of Israel
in the controversy regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide
that was taking place in the American Congress, Yossi Sarid, then member of the Knesset, criticized Israeli support of the Turkish government.
The Turks had set out to prevent a law that would set a day of commemoration in the United States for the victims of the Armenian Genocide. During a debate in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset,
Sarid stated that the Jewish people, who had endured a terrible Holocaust, were the last people who ought to sanction the denial of the holocaust of another nation, no matter what the momentary considerations
might be (Haaretz, October 19, 1989).
So it was natural, after the victory of Ehud Barak (Labor) in the 1999
election, and the nomination of Yossi Sarid as minister of education, to
expect changes in the field of education, including the hope that a step
would be taken with regard to recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
And indeed, in September 1999, as minister of education, he told a
journalist that the curriculum prepared by Yair Auron will be reexamined.1
On the same occasion, the inspector of history teaching in the Ministry of Education, Michael Yaron, told a journalist that Aurons curricu-
185
186
lum was not authorized due to its emphases (meaning that the curriculum was pro-ArmenianY.A.). He stated that a new curriculum had
been prepared by the Ministry of Education (the Department of Curriculum Planning) and was waiting for approval. (This was most likely
a revised edition of Minorities in History that was being prepared,
after the criticisms of the first draft of the curriculum; see details in the
last chapterY.A.) He declared that he hoped that the book would reach
schools in the near future. It was practically impossible then, and after
the declaration made by Sarid in April 2000, to get more precise information regarding this new curriculum.
In February 2000, I wrote a letter to the minister of education and
asked for a meeting regarding the issue. I remarked at the time, If you
do not make progress regarding the teaching of the Armenian genocide,
who will?2 Sarid probably knew that reviving the curriculum would be
a long process and that there might be obstacles laid down by officials
in the Ministry who were already opposed to it being taught in Israeli
schools. Yet he personally supported the idea of visiting the Armenian
Quarter on Armenian Memorial Day, April 24, 2000, realizing that his
visit and statement there would create a precedent. It should be said
again that Sarid was not the first Israeli minister to visit the Armenian
community on Memorial Day. Yair Zaban (Meretz), the minister of
absorption in Rabins government, had previously done so on Armenian Memorial Day, April 24, 1994. However, visiting the Armenian
Quarter was Sarids personal decision, taken without consulting anyone, and without asking the prime ministers permission or even informing him. He probably estimated that such permission would not be
granted. Sarid asked to be invited officially by the Armenian community and carefully planned his address to the Armenians, aware of every
word and knowing the significance and consequences of his act. Although he did not represent the Israeli government on this occasion, his
presence there was emphasized as being in his capacity as minister of
education.
I am aware of the special significance of my presence here today,
along with other Israelis, he said early in his speech. Today, perhaps
for the first time, you are less alone. He went on to say, I am here,
with you, as a human being, as a Jew, as an Israeli, and as minister of
education. Sarid noted that it was the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry
Morgenthau Sr., a Jew, who in 1915 was among the first to tell the
world about the genocide of the Armenians. He also referred to the
187
novel of the Jewish writer Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,
which had influenced him and his generation.3 Sarid concluded his statement with a declaration of commitment to ensure that the Armenian
Genocide would be included in the Israeli secondary school history
curriculum. (His full statement appears in Appendix A.)
It is interesting that in an article published by Haaretz on April 25,
2000, A Holocaust by Any Other Name, prepared before Sarids statement, journalist Lili Gallili wrote:4
The official stance of the Foreign Ministry can be summed up in three
sentences: We recognize that many Armenians died during the wars that
signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. We empathize with the victims of
these events. These events that caused great suffering to the Armenian people
should not be forgotten.
188
foreign affairs minister, later becoming secretary general of the Ministry, he was quoted in The Turkish Daily News (October 26, 2000) as
saying, Our government policy is that we should refrain from making
these kinds of statements. These topics should not be for politicians to
comment on, but for academics. Liel added that Yossi Sarid, who made
one of the statements, was no longer a Cabinet member after the Meretz
Party left Baraks government and supported it from the outside. It was
obvious that Sarids attitudes were not in accord with the official policy
of the State of Israel.
Very significant was the reaction of Yad Vashem. A press release
published the same day Sarids statement was made stated that Yad
Vashem would like to clarify that it has never expressed any objection
to studying the Armenian Genocide in the Israeli educational system.
This is a false conception with no factual basis that serves the motives
of the persons who instigated this rumor. Moreover, Yad Vashem wanted
to clarify that it supports the studying of the subject of the Armenian
Genocide in schools and does not believe that this may cause damage to the
studying of the history of the Holocauston the contrary.5 It is significant
to note that Professor Shevach Weiss, Yad Vashems new chairman of the
Council, a survivor of the Holocaust and former chairman of the Knesset, a
known supporter of the Armenian agenda, supported Sarids statement publicly on the Israeli First TV channel. It was he who also signed the appeal of members of the Knesset and intellectuals in 1989 demanding
that the film An Armenian Journey be aired on Israeli television (see
chapter 8). He also stated several times publicly that Jews, as victims of
the Holocaust, have a special obligation towards the suffering of others
and have to protest against evils committed by human beings.
Is the sudden change in the attitude of Yad Vashem related to the
clearly positive attitude of the minister of education? Apart from the
personal attitude of Professor Weiss, it should be noted that Yad Vashem
works closely and is supported financially by the Ministry of Education. Moreover, the general director of the Ministry is a member of the Yad
Vashem Directorate. In political and academic circles, many were indifferent to Sarids views, and others preferred not to speak against him, even
though they in fact supporteddirectly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitlyanother point of view. With cynicism and opportunism, they probably thought that it was better not to step out of line.
An analogous situation took place in France on May 29, 1998. Then,
the French Chamber of Deputies (the lower but more important house)
189
decided that France would officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. This resolution, voted upon unanimously, and considered an historic one, was achieved after years of effort. When it became clear that
the resolution was to be accepted, nobody wanted to be remembered as
the one who had been against it. Nevertheless, Turkish pressures, which
were followed by pressure from the leaders of the French political parties in power, contributed to a delay of more than two-and-a-half years
in the formal procedures. The French Senate approved the resolution
on November 7, 2000, and the French Chamber of Deputies approved it
definitively one month later, on January 18, 2001.
Not all Israelis were indifferent to Sarids statement or supported it.
In the popular radio program Talks with Listeners that dealt with the
issue, speakers criticized Sarids statement, advancing arguments such
as: Sarid was right but not clever, we have to protect our interests with
Turkey, and there were other tragedies to peoples other than the Armenians. Other speakers repeated the need to emphasize the uniqueness
and the totality of the Holocaust.
The religious newspaper Hamodia criticized Sarids statement for
being populist and not representative of any official or unofficial stand
(November 7, 2000).
The Jewish-Turkish Immigrants Organization in Israel and TurkishJews were deeply involved in these debates, as they had been in previous ones, protesting this time against the one-sided statement, and
warning of the danger for the well-being of thousands of Jews living in
Turkey today. They claimed that the declaration could be used as a
weapon by Turkish extreme fundamentalists against the Jewish community in Turkey. They also mentioned the humane and tolerant treatment of Turkey towards its Jewish minority for 500 years following the
Expulsion of the Jews from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century.
They protested against the efforts of the international Armenian community to compare the Armenian massacre to the Jewish Holocaust.
The spokesman of the Turkish-Jews in Israel was quoted as saying:
This tragic event does not resemble the Holocaust. As spokesman of
120,000 Turkish Jews, I think that the Minister of Education should not
take a partisan attitude in a painful and tragic event, against the attitude of
the Israeli government.6
Another claim was that we can not, and probably never will know
the real truth.7 A further argument was raised by a history teacher,
190
191
differ in its essence from the Armenian massacre, it will in the near future
stand in the same line with the Nakeba. [This term, in Arabic, is used to
define the tragedy of the Palestinians in 1948, meaning disaster, tragedy,
catastrophe.Y.A.]
By mentioning the Nakeba in this context Haetzni touched on an extremely sensitive, painful, and explosive issue regarding the self-image
of the Jewish-Israelis and their relationship with the Palestinians. Both
sides see themselves as victims. There are Palestinians who think of
their tragedy of 1948, the Nakeba, as a genocide, or even Holocaust,
terms that the absolute majority of Israelisincluding myselfcannot
accept in this regard. Both articles by Haetzni and Galili commented
on the relationship between Israel and Turkey and their respective interests. Galili raised the question of why Israel does not deal with other
genocides that have been and are being committed with the same eagerness as it deals with the Armenian one: The relationship with Turkey is a strategic base for our existenceTurkeys enemies are our
enemies, its friendsour friends. For Haetzni, there are several historical points that were missed in the public discourse following Sarids
speech: the alliance between the Armenians and the Russians, the enemy of Turkey; Armenians were evacuated from areas where they endangered the security of Turkey during the war; the trials in Malta against
the perpetrators of the massacre. He concluded his article by saying:
The Turkish argument was not even heard in Israel. Nobody tried to
contradict these claims, and the false allegations by the Israeli minister
were accepted without any reservations, as if it were part of the official
policy of Israel. The media practically behaved as Sarids spokesman.
Galili remarked that anyone can read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,
which was, in fact, read in the past by many youngsters. He claimed
that there are many other books [indeed, but not in HebrewY.A.], as
well as research and information on the Internet regarding the Armenian genocide, but he also stated, Before learning about the Armenian
massacre it is better to learn something about our Holocaust, about the
wars of Israel and the culture of Israel. Even learning an additional
chapter from the Bible will not hurt.
TerminologySome Clarifications
!
Sarid never used the term Holocaust but rather the term genocide, both
in Hebrew and in English, in connection with the Armenians. On the con-
192
trary, Sarid even drew out the difference between Holocaust (Shoah) and
genocide, when speaking of those Jews, victims of the Shoah, who joined
the members of the Armenians community, on their Memorial Day, as they
marked the eighty-fifth anniversary of their genocide.
It is correct though, that the term Holocaust or Armenian Holocaust
was sometimes used in the Israeli media to define the Armenian tragedy.
For example, in Tom Segevs article in Haartez, entitled The Armenians
Enter the CurriculumHistorical Justice to Another Holocaust,11 Segev
used the term Holocaust purposefully throughout the article. Other journalists also used this term. This is clear from the title of a report in Maariv,
Crisis with Turkey because of Sarids Decision to Teach the Armenian
Holocaust,12 or the title of the news article in Yediot Aharonot, Sarid: I
Will Recommend Teaching About the Holocaust of the Armenian People.13
The same term, in The Holocaust of the Armenian People, was used in the
news of the Army Radio Station (Gali Tzahal) on April 27, 2000. It is
likely that some of the journalists were not aware of the significance of the
terms, and probably did not know about the heated discussions, in Israel
and around the world, concerning the use of the terms Holocaust and genocide and the differences between them.14
The curriculum, Sensitivity to the Worlds Suffering, dealt extensively
with the genocide of the Roma. Sarid himself insisted that he wanted to see
a main chapter on genocide, this huge and inhumane atrocity in the Israeli curriculum. He also stressed the value of human life, no matter whose
Jewish, Arab, Armenian, Roma, Bosnian, Albanian, or Rwandanand said,
I want this lofty message to be imparted to all our students in our school
history curriculum. Therefore, the accusation that Sarid wanted to avoid
dealing with the genocide of the Roma is incorrect.
The historical points Haetzni raised are hotly contested. Others argue the
following: The Armenians massacred in Turkey had nothing to do with those
involved with the Russians. The Armenians were deported on death marches
throughout Turkey, not only from the war zones. The trials in Malta never
took place for political reasons, so they could not have exonerated those
being held there for capital crimes.
193
Sarids previous decision some months before to teach the works of the
Palestinian poet Muhammad Darwish. Sarid had decided that some of
Darwishs poems would be studied in high school classes, and many
criticized his decision. Segev hoped that Sarids decision would lead
also to a more humanistic attitude in teaching the Holocaust. He noted
that we usually do not mention mentally ill people, Jehovahs Witnesses,
homosexuals, and Roma who were also murdered by the Nazis.15
A Haaretz editorial (April 27, 2000) carried a very clear title, The
Need to Learn and to Remember, and stated that:
Israels stuttering official position about the genocide of the Armenian people
rests upon the mistaken assumption that there is an irresolvable contradiction between political interests and a moral stance.
According to Haaretz,
Education Minister Yossi Sarid showed prudence and sensitivity when he
attended a memorial service conducted by Armenians in Jerusalem, to mark
194
the 85th anniversary of the genocide. Even though he went to the commemoration without coordinating his step with the Foreign Ministry or the
Prime Ministers Office, Sarid appeared as an official Israeli delegate.
Beilin had expressed his attitude before Sarids statement, and, quite
certainly, without knowledge of Sarids intention. Both statements created concerns on the Turkish side that an official policy shift by Israel
was in the making.
195
196
Nevertheless, the Turkish government was not satisfied by this response. Ankara wanted a written statement from the Israeli government. A week later, Turkish representatives avoided participating in
official receptions held to celebrate the fifty-second Israeli Independence Day, and also boycotted the receptions held in Israeli embassies
around the world, including the one organized by the Israeli ambassador in Ankara. According to the Turkish Daily News, Prime Minister
Bulent Ecevit did not agree with this strong reaction, even though he
was perturbed by the declarations. The Israeli tourism minister, Amnon
Lipkin-Shahak (who previously had visited Ankara officially as chiefof-staff), was asked to rethink his planned visit to Turkey or to postpone it, even though he had been invited by the Turks.
On May 14, 2000 Maariv reported a severe deterioration in TurkishIsraeli relations and a cooling down of diplomatic ties between Israel
and its most important strategic allies in the region.20 According to the
report, Jerusalem received messages from Turkey that it would reconsider its relationship with Israel because of Sarids statement. The report related that high-echelon political sources in Jerusalem severely
criticized Sarids behavior and the fact that he had not consulted with
the government before making the speech. It also stated that Israeli
security sources expressed their fears that Israeli security interests would
be damaged because of this development, and that the prime minister
was considering intervening and talking with the Turkish president and
prime minister.
Some days later (May 18, 2000), the Israeli tourism minister began a
three-day visit to Turkey. Turkish sources reported that Turkey and Israel demonstrated their will not to let the so-called Armenian genocide
further harm the bond between them. Israel stressed once more that its
official policy vis--vis the alleged Armenian genocide had not changed,
and that it adheres to its position that the issue should be discussed in
the realm of academia (Xinhual General News Services, Ankara, May
18, 2000).
This was not the last time the issue was raised. At the end of August
2000, the Israeli prime minister and minister of defense, Ehud Barak,
visited Turkey to support the Israeli security industriesat stake were
contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Turkish and the
Israeli media reported that Sarids statement was also discussed in the
meeting, claiming that Barak promised the Turks that Sarid would not
return to the government soon.21
197
198
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Tomer Zharchin, Who will censor the censorship, Hair, September 19,
1999. As mentioned before, Israeli public opinion is very sensitive and
attributes a great significance to the educational curricula. Several times
this has aroused heated public debates. The article deals with some curricula that were not authorized in whole or in part by the Ministry of
Education.
Yair Auron, letter to the minister of education, February 2, 2000. On March
29, 2000 I was invited to meet him.
See details in Yair Auron 2000, op. cit., The Forty Days of Musa Dagh:
Symbol and Parable, pp. 293-312.
Lili Galili, A Holocaust By any Other Name, Haaretz, April 25, 2000.
Yad Vashem, Press Release, April 24, 2000.
Moreno Margonto, director of the Jewish-Turkish immigrant organization, letter to the editor, Haaretz, May 1, 2000.
Yitzhak Althon, Istanbul, Turkey, letter to the editor, Haaretz, May 1,
2000.
Gabriel Knold, letter to the editor, Haaretz, May 4, 2000.
Eliakim Haetzni, Only Holocaust, All Holocaust, Yediot Aharonot, May
1, 2000.
Zeev Galili, Between Massacre and Holocaust, Macor Rishon, May
12, 2000.
Tom Segev, The Armenians Enter the Curriculum, Haaretz, April 28,
2000.
Ben Caspit and Eli Kimor, Crises with TurkeyBecause of Sarids decision to teach the Armenian Holocaust, Maariv, May 14, 2000.
Tamar Travelsy-Hadad, Sarid: I will recommend to teach about the Holocaust of the Armenian People, Yediot Aharonot, April 25, 2000.
See, among others, the short and incomplete overview in Auron 2000,
pp.13-24.
Tom Segev, op. cit.
Editorial, The need to learn and to remember, Haaretz, April 27, 2000.
Lili Galili, op. cit.
Letters to Yossi Sarid from, among others, the Union of Armenians in
Italy, Milan, May 16, 2000; from Armenian Educational and Cultural Society, Athens, May 19, 2000; from one who lost most of my family members in 1915, May 10, 2000.
Uria Savit, Foreign Games, Haaretz, August 18, 2000.
Ben Caspit and Eli Kimor, op. cit.
Daniel Ben Simon, The beginning seemed different, Haaretz, September 1, 2000. Sarid reacted cynically, saying that it is good that there is
Turkey, so I can know my position.
Letter of Georgette Avakian to Shlomit Amichai, July 12, 2000; letter of
Michel Abitbul, July 31, 2000 (private archive).
8
The Sphere of the Media
We refuse to accept any avoidance of the Armenian Genocide in the national media.Petition signed by sixty-one
Israeli public personalities and intellectuals, 1990
The public debate in Israel regarding the attitude towards the Armenian Genocide has several times been the focus of the mediaespecially television. Although there are many common characteristics between print and electronic mass media, the policy towards them is very
different. The basic attitude of the state towards print media in Israel is
(with certain limits) that of allowing freedom of expression and freedom of
information, whereas the attitude towards electronic mass media demands
that they should be limited in nature and receive authorization by law. In
Israel, as in all other countries, the lesser the degree of democracy, the
more the state controls its media. Yet even open and democratic regimes tend to be involved in the control of the electronic mass media.1
Although public radio was under the control of the government
until the 1990s the right of broadcasting was limited to the state or its
institutionsthrough the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA), it had a
fair amount of freedom.2 The IBA monopoly ceased to exist in Israel and
after the partial privatization of the electronic mass media, its influence
diminished. The private second channel began broadcasting commercially in 1993. However, for our issue this fact had no influence at all.
The commercial channels almost never produced or broadcast any
significant program about the Armenian genocide. Yet, this was not intentional, and probably happened because no one thought it was an important public issue. The First Channelsometimes called Israeli TV or
National TV, controlled by the IBAdebated numerous times about
199
200
the broadcasting of controversial internal, social, political, and security issues. The Armenian issue is considered an external issue; still, it is the
only one of this kind that has created such a big controversy in the IBA
and in the public.
1978Armenians in Jerusalem: A Film about the
Armenian Community in Jerusalem
In 1978, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority decided to produce a documentary film for television about the Armenian community in the Old
City of Jerusalem. The Authority signed a contract with a private company to co-produce the film. The film script was approved, and an English-language version was planned for distribution abroad. For the production of the English-language version, Michael Arlen, an American
writer of Armenian descent, was invited to Israel.3 The seemingly innocent film focused on the Armenians living in Jerusalems Old City and
included several references to the Armenian massacre during the First
World War, primarily the testimony of several survivors of the genocide of 1915 who resided in Jerusalem. The film reached the final stages
of production, but its screening was blocked by the Israel Broadcasting
Authority, and it was never shown.
Several groups were involved in preventing the screening of the film:
Turkish officials, their diplomatic mission in Israel, Turkish Jews in
Turkey, activists in the Turkish Immigrants Society in Israel, and the
Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In this controversyas well as in all the controversies to come on
this issuethe Israeli attitude was evident. It may be summed up as
our Holocaust versus the Holocausts of others. Amos Elon, a journalist and author, published a series of articles in Haaretz. He claims:
Demonstrations of hypocrisy, opportunism and the moral trepidation within
the official bureaucracy of the nation, which ceaselessly reminds the world
of our Holocaust while the Holocaust of others is a subject worthy only of
political exploitation.4
With regard to a demand, which was made to delete any mention of the
events of 1915 from the film, he wrote,
They [the IBA] are like a person who suggests deleting from a movie about
the suffering of the Jewish People in the modern era all reference to Ger-
201
many, the Holocaust or even the Kishinev pogrom [committed in that Russian city in 1903].
The protest did not help; governmental and IBA sources were led to
understand that Jewish interests were in danger. The film was never
broadcast. Even from the television archives one needs special permission from the director of television in order to watch it.6 The director of
the film, Amnon Rubinstein, still does not understand the reasons for
the total banning of the film, which was driven, in his words, by some
strange paranoia. Others from National Television who have seen it
also fail to understand the reasons.7
1990An Armenian Journey
An Armenian Journey is a film that was written, produced, and directed in 1988 by Theodore Bogosian, an Armenian-American journalist, for the Public Broadcasting System in the United States.
202
The film tells the story of Miriam Davis, a survivor of the Genocide,
whose family perished. She talks about the death of her mother and
brother and later she goes with Bogosian to the village in Eastern Turkey where she lived as a child. The film presents, among other documents, the protocols of the proceedings against the leaders of the Young
Turks just after the end of World War I.
The Turks made unsuccessful efforts to prevent the screening of the
film in other countries as well. In 1988, after the screening of the film
on the Public Broadcasting System in the United States, the Turkish
Embassy in the U.S. and Turkish-American groups protested. Complaining of inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations, the Turkish
ambassador called the film a biased attempt to validate the claim that
Armenians were the victims of Turkish-perpetrated genocide early
this century, and not casualties of war, as the Turkish government
still insists (A Disputed Journey, New York Times, June 2, 1988).
The film, which had already been screened in dozens of countries,
was scheduled by the authorized person in the television network to
appear in April 1990 on Israeli national television. At the time the film
was scheduled to be aired, the television network, without explanation,
screened instead a documentary film about the life cycle of bees. There
was no announcement of the cancellation of the scheduled screening of
An Armenian Journey. The debate that followed was sharp and intense.
The public outcry against the cancellation of the screening was initiated by then Member of Knesset Yair Zaban. On May 13, 1990, a day
before the meeting of the board of directors of the IBA, who had to
decide whether the film would be screened or not, a petition was published, signed by sixty-one public personalities and intellectuals from
all across the political spectrum, including twenty-five members of the
Knesset from eight political parties, right, center, and left, six jurists,
nine writers and poets, eleven academics (among them historians of the
Holocaust), and two rabbis, one Orthodox and one Liberal (see the
Appendix at the end of this chapter). The petition called upon the prime
minister, Yitzchak Shamir, and the management of the IBA to screen
the film as early as possible. It is not the first time that a film that deals
with the terrible tragedy of the Armenian people was banned from broadcasting in our country. The petition was noteworthy and exceptional.
It presented a change in the position of some historians of the Holocaust, who at this time took sides and criticized the attitude of the government over what they had not done in the controversy over the inter-
203
204
The film has not been screened on TV to this day, despite numerous
requests and several changes of governments and education ministers
in Israel since then.10 The formal explanation presented by the chairman of the board of directors and the managing director of the Israeli
Broadcasting Authority, was that they had received requests not to do it
from the Chief Rabbinate of Turkish Jewry, from the Association of
Turkish Immigrants in Israel, and from other Turkish-Israeli immigrant
groups. They claimed that screening the documentary could cause damage to or even endanger the Jews of Turkey. An additional reason was
probably a fear of harming relations with Turkey, which was at the time
the only Muslim state that maintained diplomatic relations with Israel.
One can not assume that there was no talk of pressure originating in
Turkey and the Turkish Jewish business community. Furthermore, it
was claimed that deterioration in relations with Turkey might hamper
the exit of Jews from other Muslim countries, apparently Iran and Syria.
Officially, every alleged instance of pressure on Israel by the Turkish
Government was vigorously denied. An official denial was also made
of the alleged intervention of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Prime
Ministers Office.
In the year 2000, Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, now Shinui (liberal, anticlerical) party leader and member of Knesset, admitted that as IBA
director-general he had cancelled the documentary film under pressure
from the former Foreign Minister Director General David Kimchi, who
warned him that angering Ankara could harm efforts to help Syrian
Jews escape via Turkey.11 A member of the IBA board of directors who
had supported cancellation of the documentary film said, The film
contains propaganda and injury to part of the public, because a Holocaust happened only to the Jewish People (Kol Hair, June 22, 1990).
The director of the Prime Ministers Office was quoted as saying: It is
a problem of the Turkish Jews. We are not interested in the Eskimos or
the Armenians, only in the Jews (Kol Hair, June 19, 1990; Haaretz,
June 22, 1990). Member of Knesset Yair Zaban demanded that the prime
minister rebuke his director for the latters comments about the Armenians, and described the comments as sickening. He added:
The very refusal to screen the Armenian film, when accompanied by offensive declarations such as these, helps to create the impression that the present
leaders of the State of Israel condemn genocide only when it concerns the
Jewish People and results in the fact that many Jews and Israelis in Israel
and around the world hide their faces for shame. (Haaretz, June 26, 1990)
205
206
207
208
Association is with Auschwitz, the area behind the crematoria. The film
returns from time to time to this allusion, Auschwitz. But An Armenian
Journey does not manage to create identity between the Jewish and Armenian Holocausts. That is to say, the film does not infringe on the singularity
and uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust. (Yediot Aharonot, May 11, 1990)
209
purposely because of the Memorial Day of the Armenian Genocide, April 24. Attempts by the Turkish Embassy in Israel to cancel
the broadcast failed. At the end the feature story, Yoman Hashavua
conducted an interview with the Turkish ambassador in Israel, Unur
Gke, which restated the official Turkish denials of the massacre
and of Turkish responsibility for its implementation. The ambassador said, inter alia, In wartime, many innocent victims fall in battle,
and in war like in war. In a diplomatic way he inquired as to why
the feature had not been censored.
Both the feature and the interview aroused considerable reaction
and the subject was brought before the plenum of the Knesset. A
few members of the Knesset attacked the ambassadors comments.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin said, as mentioned:
We have never accepted the very superficial analysis that this was done
during wartime. That is not war. This is definitely massacre, genocide, and
we will assist in its commemoration because this is the sort of thing that the
world is obliged to remember.
There were those who were angered by the interview with the Turkish ambassador and compared it, wrongly in my opinion, with granting
a public stage to Holocaust deniers. In fact, the interview did not lead to
a denial of the Armenian Genocide but rather to its being publicized by
the deputy foreign minister. Yaakov Achimeir, the television correspondent, claimed the interview with the Turkish ambassador caused a dramatic and historic reversal in Israels attitude toward the genocide of
the Armenian People.17
Turkeys Ambassador to Israel himself protested against the broadcasting of the feature story, which was, in his view, one-sided. He claimed
that the only purpose of the story was to support the Armenians and to
slander the Turkish people. Further, he argued that the feature presented
only one version of what he called The Armenian tragedy, which he
claims was considered by historians to be controversial and about which
one could not draw clear conclusions.18
Some weeks later, Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin presented
the television correspondent with a thick file, which contained protests
from members of the Jewish community in Turkey against the broadcast. The Turkish Embassy had also lodged a formal protest.19 The Turkish government was furious. The Turkish foreign minister threatened Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres with the cooling of
diplomatic relations.20 Regardless of this episode, the strong mutual
210
interests of Turkey and Israel won out and the relationships between Israel and Turkey became even closer over the years.
Practically every year since 1994, the Armenian Memorial Day
has been mentioned by at least one Israeli channel. In April 1997,
Yaakov Achimeir, as an editor at a new weekly program on Saturday night, News Around the World, devoted much of the first
program to the issue of genocide in the modern World. The program focused on the Armenian Genocide, whose formal memorial
day was close. This time there was not a single voice of protest in
response to this detailed discussion of the subject.21
What can we learn from this development? First and foremost: what
we are showing in our media, including the history of modern human
suffering as a result of genocide in general and the Armenian one in
particular, is our own issue. If that is clear to us, it probably will be
clear also to the Turks, who are indeed sensitive to any mention of this
shameful history in their recent past.
Secondly, changes can sometimes be achieved even by individuals
who have the intellectual honesty, the devotion, and also some sense of
courage to struggle against mainstream conventional attitudes and the
official approach. Yaacov Achimeir is an example of an individual who
took a stand, even though he belongs to the system. He took a stand
on the issue, expressed his views publicly, and tried to change the situation at the IBA, and succeeded in many regards.
The political circumstances (Rabins Labor-Meretz government) surrounding some of the changes in the attitudes of Israelis, and perhaps
also of a growing awareness of the subject, are also explanations for the
change. While the Armenian Genocide is practically nonexistent in the
Israeli educational curriculum, exposing ourselves to the truth by the
means of the media remains almost the only other way to teachlittle
though that may beabout the Armenian Genocide. This event reveals
once again that Israel does not have to fear losing its relationship with
Turkey, because it is in the interest of Turkey, equally, to keep and even
enlarge its ties with Israel.
Our focus here has been with the electronic media, mostly television. As mentioned, the control over the radio stations, even the national ones, is much less intense than the control over television. The
radio stations have dealt with the Armenian issueif the journalists or
the editors were aware of the significance of the subject and thought it
was an issue to be dealt with.
211
212
Appendix
For the Attention of Members of the
Board of Directors of the IBA*
We refuse to accept the avoidance of the Armenian Genocide.
We read with sorrow that the Management of the IBA cancelled the
screening of An Armenia Journey that had been produced in the U.S.
and was screened there as well as in other countries.
The film was scheduled to appear in the beginning of April, before
April 24, the Memorial Day of the massacre of the Armenian people
that was committed 75 years ago. It is not the first time that a film
dealing with the terrible tragedy of the Armenian people was banned
from being broadcast in our country.
We call upon the Prime Minister, in his role as the Minister of Education and Culture, and upon the Management of the IBA, to screen the
film An Armenian Journey as early as possible. Especially as members
of a people which has experienced a Holocaust unparalleled in human
history, and which battles today against its denial, we are obliged to
display a special sensitivity to the tragedy of another people.
We refuse to accept any avoidance of the Armenian Genocide in the
national media.
This petition is published in view of the meeting of the Board of
Directors of the IBA tomorrow that will decide on the screening of the
film An Armenian Journey.
Haaretz, May 13, 1990.
* Signed by sixty-one public figures and intellectuals from all over the political spectrum, including twenty-five members of the Knesset.
213
Notes
1.
Oren Tokatly, Communication and Policy in Israel (Tel Aviv: The Open
University of Israel, 2000), pp. 77-78; Dan Caspi and Yechiel Limor, The
Mediators: The Mass Media in Israel 1948-1990 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved,
1992); Communication and Democracy in Israel, edited by Dan Caspi
(Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hammeuchad Publishing House, 1997).
2. I myself gave four hours of lectures about the Armenian Genocide on the
national radio station (Channel One) in 1998. One of the programs was titled,
Who is Afraid of the Armenian Genocide? These lectures were re-broadcast once again in 2001.
3. Michael J. Arlen, an internationally acclaimed writer, is the author of Passage to Ararat, which describes his search for his own family and cultural
roots and his desire to understand what it means to be an Armenian. The
book also appeared in Hebrew (Yediot Aharonot Publishers, 1978).
4. Amos Elon, Armenian as a Parable: Our Holocaust and the Holocaust of
Others, Haaretz 1978, also appeared in Elons book, Looking Back in
Consternation (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1998), pp. 250-60.
5. Ibid., pp. 258-59.
6. In 1995, hoping to include some parts of the film in my educational programafter obtaining, of course, special permission and official agreementI asked for permission to see it from the television archives. My
request was denied by the director of National Television, Yair Stern.
7. Interview with the director of the film, Amnon Rubinstein, June 7, 2000.
8. Letter from Aaron Harel, chairman of the Board of Directors, to the advisor of the minister of education, October 8, 1990.
9. Letter from Yair Zaban to Minister of Education Zvulun Hamer, August
12, 1990. The chairman of the board of directors wrote in his letter (October, 8, 1990) that Zaban was right in his demand.
10. I myself wrote to the managing director of Israel Television, Mordechai
Kirshenbaum, who was nominated after the creation of Rabins government in 1991. I asked him to correct this moral injustice and to make it
possible to broadcast the film, even late at night. I did not get a reply.
11. Leora Eren Frucht, A Tragedy Off Stage No More, Jerusalem Post, May
12, 2000.
12. See the letter from heads of the Turkish immigrant community in Israel,
and a letter to the editor of Yediot Aharonot, May 20, 1990. There are
those who reject these arguments. Historian Bernard Wasserstein argues
that the position of the Turkish government on the Jewish question during
the Holocaust was not particularly generous, but not especially murderous. Its position was cynical and narrow like that of most of the neutral
countries. In his opinion, Turkey has nothing to be proud of (Haaretz,
January 14, 1994). On this issue see also Alar Keyder, State and Class in
Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development (London and New York: Verso,
1987), pp. 112-114.
214
13. Aryeh Meckel was the managing director of the IBA at the time, and Alon
Pankes was nominated by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami as bureau
director in 2000.
14. Georgette Avakian (The Armenian Committee in Israel), To Whom It
May Concern, May 5, 1990; July 1, 1990.
15. The Minutes of the Meetings of Kibbutz Tel Hai (a group of young
Jewish activists in the Bialystock Ghetto in World War II) were buried in
Bialystock and recovered after the war. They recalled in their meetings
Musa Dagh and they were published under the title Pages from the Fire.
See Auron, 2000, pp. 301-303.
16. See in detail, Auron, 2000, pp. 176-180.
17. Yaakov Achimeir, Am I Indifferent to the Armenians? Maariv, May 1,
1994.
18. A letter by the former Turkish Ambassador to Israel, Unur Gke, to the
managing director of Israel Television, Mordechai Kirschenbaum, April
27, 1994.
19. Yosef Goel, The Armenian Genocide, Jerusalem Post, May 4, 1997.
20. Yaakov Achimeir, The First Genocide, Haaretz, February 13, 1995.
21. Yosef Goel, The Armenian Genocide, Jerusalem Post, May 4, 1997.
9
The Israeli Academy and
the Armenian Genocide
Therefore at such a time the prudent* person keeps silent,
for it is an evil time.Amos 5:13
The Israeli academy plays a very important role in the debate over
the Armenian Genocide. It has been said again and again by governmentsincluding the Turkish onethat historians, not politicians,
should deal with the issue. In many cases this argument, relevant as it
is, is used as an excuse or pretext in their explanations for why they do
not recognize the genocide. It is quite clear that there is notand there
could never beany academic institution that could decide scientifically whether or not there was a genocide committed by the Ottomans
against the Armenians.
In this specific context the distinction between academics and intellectuals has to be pointed out. The term les intellectuels first acquired
widespread usage as a consequence of Emile Zolas open letter to French
President Felix Faure and the manifeste des intellectuels evoked by one
of the most famous public discourses of modern historythe Dreyfus Case
of 1898. Not every academic is an intellectual; far from it. So the term
intellectuals is not equal to the term community of scientists.
According to the classical concept, intellectuals, by the very nature
of their work and autonomous position, have a responsibility for truthfulness and towards truth. Lewis Coser insisted that
intellectuals consider themselves special custodians of abstract ideas like
reason and justice and truth, jealous guardians of moral standards that are
too often ignored in the market place and the houses of power.1
* The original Hebrew text uses the term maskil, intelligent.
215
216
217
In the fall of 1997, scholars and writers in the United States signed a
petition titled, We Oppose Tainted Chairs Funded by the Turkish Government at American Universities, protesting the Turkish governments funding chairs in Turkish studies at American universities. In the same year,
after a long debate, the proposal for a Turkish chair at UCLA was denied.
In these charged circumstances, the attitude of the Israeli academy is
very significant. In addition to all the reasons previously discussed regarding the significance of Israels attitude toward the Armenian Genocide, the good reputation of the Israeli academy in the world at large
must also be mentioned.
This chapter will concentrate on three main events regarding the Israeli academy and the Armenian Genocide.
(a) The international conference on the Holocaust and Genocide held in Israel
in 1982;
(b) The debate over honorary citizenship by the city of Tel Aviv to Professor
Bernard Lewis in 1997 and its implications; and
(c) The intended nomination of Professor Ehud Toledano as Israeli ambassador in Turkey in 1997.
218
hundred and fifty lectures were scheduled to be held, six of them dealing with the Armenian genocide.
The preparations for the conference had begun three years before. It
was to be the first of its kind from at least the viewpoint of three of its
major goals, each in its own way intellectually daring:
(a) To associate the continuing memorial and study of the Holocaust with the
study of the genocides of other peoples;
(b) To bring together a wide spectrum of intellectual disciplines and professions to study the Holocaust and genocide; and
(c) To look not only at the past, but toward the futurethe acknowledgment
that genocide will be the certain fate awaiting millions upon millions of
human beings in the future.
219
220
Major Jewish organizations around the world, such as the American Jewish Committee, and many intended participants had been
personally visited by Turkish ambassadors and/or were pressured
by Israels Foreign Ministry to withdraw their participation. The
Foreign Ministry tried to persuade not only official agencies to withdraw but individuals as well, enlisting such eminent scholars as
Elie Wiesel, Robert Jay Lifton, and Alan Dershowitz. It was Wiesels
telegram of withdrawal, announcing the dangerous situation for Jews
in Turkey if the meetings were held, that the Foreign Ministry sent
to persuade participants not to attend the conference.
In an interview with the New York Times on June 3, Elie Wiesel
broke the story: Israelis Said to Oppose Parley after Threat to Turkish Jews.5 According to Wiesel, he had been told by an Israeli official six weeks earlier that the Turks had let it be known there would
be serious difficulties if Armenians took part in the conference. He
then received another message from Israeli officials. This one said
that a delegation of Turkish Jews had visited Israel to warn there
would be reprisals against Jews in Turkey if the conference were
allowed to proceed as planned. A third Israeli message followed,
reporting a threat that Wiesel, without wishing to reveal it, said was
even more serious. He said, at that point, he felt he had to act. He
would not consider excluding the Armenians, he said.
Elie Wiesel argued that he would resign as president unless the conference was postponed. It was an action, he said, that he took with the
greatest anguish, and only after deciding that he could not support an
event, however worthy, that put lives at risk, however unjustly. One
life is more important than anything we can say about life, he said,
while discussing the pressures that were put on him and other conference leaders by the Israelis. According to Wiesel, two institutionsTel
Aviv University and Yad Vashemhad indicated then (June 3) that they
would not participate. He tried to persuade Professor Charny and his
associates to postpone the conference and to reschedule it outside Israel. When Professor Charny refused, Wiesel sent out telegrams announcing his resignation. This, he thinks, may have caused enough
people to reconsider to make postponement more likely.
In the meantime, spokesmen for the Israeli Foreign Ministry denied that any Turkish pressures or threats against Israel or Turkeys
Jews had been applied, but admitted they sought to cancel the meeting out of concern for the interests of Jews.6 The New York Times
221
reported that the spokesmen said their request had been motivated by
considerations vital to the Jewish nation that could not be spelled
out.7 The Israeli charg daffaires in Ankara, Alon Liel, admitted that
since April we had had a mutual exchange of information with Turkish officials on the genocide conference, and informed the Turkish
Foreign Ministry on June 4 that all Israeli official and semiofficial institutions had withdrawn from the conference and that other participants
had been urged to do the same.8 The Turkish government, and Jewish
leaders in Turkey as well, categorically denied there had been any threats,
and reported that Turkish threats of reprisal were officially described as
totally false.9 A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman told the New York
Times: We are not against the conference in Tel Aviv but oppose any
linkage of the Holocaust to the Armenian allegations of genocide.10
The Turkish Ambassador in Washington, in a letter to the editors
of the New York Times, wrote (June 10, 1982):
Hearsay reports that the Turkish government had conveyed to the Israeli
government any message whatsoever that explicitly or implicitly suggests
any potential for adverse action against Jewish Turks are totally unfounded.
The notion that Jewish Turks might be victimized because of a contemplated conference in Israel that may include reiteration of 70 years old
misrepresentations regarding the treatment of Armenians during World War
I is preposterous.11
In the same letter he mentions the fact that twenty-two Turkish diplomats or members of their families had been assassinated recently by
Armenian terrorists.
It should be noted that the counselor for the United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, Monroe H. Freedman, an American official, told
the New York Times (June 22, 1982)12 that a Turkish diplomat had, in
1981, threatened retaliation if the fate of Turkish Armenians was included in the proposed Washington Holocaust Museum. He said he had
been warned then that, if the Armenian issue was to be part of the museum, the safety of Jews in Turkey would be threatened and Turkey
might pull out of NATO. The Turkish diplomat, Mithat Balkan, an embassy counselor in Washington, denied the accusations. Turkish interference in the program of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is witnessed by other sources.13
Contrary to the expectations of Wiesel and the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and despite the Turkish threat of reprisal and pressure from Israeli
222
223
224
concluded: After Yad Vashem closed its gates before the conference and its members boycotted it, the conference was held in Tel
Aviv. Participants returned to their home countries with a certain impression of Yad Vashem, its moral stature, and its political and intellectual independence.16 (For more about the attitude of Yad Vashem towards the Armenian Genocide, see later in this chapter.)
Freedom of Ideas versus Use of Academics
as an Arm of National Policy
It was an affront to my dignity as a human being and as a Jew, that after the
Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, a Jew should be told
he cannot go to an academic conference or there will be a pogrom.17
225
government policy, but up to a certain point the request that academic activity be shaped to fit government policy is not outrageous. It became outrageous when the government spurned the
organizers cooperation in keeping the Armenian subject at a
low profile and demanded they sacrifice the central principle of
all academic undertakings: responsibility for knowledge and
truth. Similarly, the pressures on potential funding sources to
abandon the project were bothersome, but up to a point may not
have constituted an abuse of government power in the realpolitik
of life. Even the direct appeals to scholars in the name of the
government to boycott an academic activity, though unpalatable,
were not necessarily an abuse of democratic government.
However, Charny believes there certainly is no excuse for the
full-blown lies told by the government to prevent people from attending the conference, by telling them it had actually been canceled when it was not. There was a crucial period of eight days
preceding the conference when the organizers could not get a news
story into any paper to announce that the conference was taking
place. It is clear that deliberately misleading hints that the Ministry
might fund the transfer of the conference to another country were
no more than a way of seducing cancellation of the entire proceedings. At no time, wrote Charny, was there any actual financial offer
made to the conferences legal advisor.
Taken all together, the original demand by the government to
cancel the lectures on the Armenian Genocide, the misleading hints
of funding the transfer of the conference outside of Israel, strongarming funding sources, calling academics around the world in the
name of the government not to attend, telling the people that the conference was canceled, and controlling the press go beyond the legitimate exercise of government power in a realistic conflict of interests with a group of academics.
Moreover, added to the barely concealed contempt for an academic meeting, there was a stubborn refusal to understand the conception of the conference that honored the Holocaust that befell the Jewish people by extending the concern to the genocides of all other peoples. Ministry officials
repeatedly suggested that if the organizers could not drop the Armenian
issue, they should simply cancel all topics other than the Holocaust.18
Professor Yehuda Bauer, an Israeli Holocaust expert who had withdrawn from the conference, publicly admitted later that it was a grave
226
227
would say the most distinguished historian of the Middle East. Lewis
stature provided a lofty cover for the Turkish national agenda of
obfuscating academic research on the Armenian Genocide.
In his classic book, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, first published
in 1962, Bernard Lewis referred to the Armenian issue as follows:
Most tragic was the case of the Armenians, who at the beginning of the
nineteenth century were still known as the Millet-i Sadika, the loyal community, and were described by a well-informed French visitor as the minority group most loyal to the Ottoman Empire and most trusted by the
Turks. The change began with the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, and the creation of a Russian Armenia on the eastern border of Turkey, where the Armenian Church was established and recognized and where Armenian governors and generals ruled
provinces and commanded armies. The political and cultural impact of
Russian Armenia on the one hand, and the new national and liberal ideas
coming from Europe on the other, powerfully affected the Ottoman Armenians, especially the rising middle-class, and stimulated the growth of an
ardent and active Armenian nationalist movement.
For the Turks, the Armenian movement was the deadliest of all threats.
From the conquered lands of the Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Greeks,
they could, however reluctantly, withdraw, abandoning distant provinces
and bringing the Imperial frontier nearer home. But the Armenians, stretching across Turkey-in-Asia from the Caucasian frontier to the Mediterranean coast, lay in the very heart of the Turkish homelandand to renounce
these lands would have meant not the truncation, but the dissolution of the
Turkish state. Turkish and Armenian villages, inextricably mixed, had for
centuries lived in neighborly association. Now a desperate struggle between
them begana struggle between two nations for the possession of a single
homeland, that ended with the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million
and half Armenians perished [my emphasis, Y.A].21
The book has gone through numerous editions, was translated into many
languages, including Hebrew, and was an essential entry in the bibliographies of many university curriculums all over the world.
Later on Bernard Lewis reversed his position and changed the
text. In 1985 he signed a petition to the U.S. Congress protesting
the plan to make April 24, the day on which the Armenians commemorate the victims of the Genocide, a national American-Armenian memorial day, mentioning mans inhumanity to man. Lewis
signature was the most significant of sixty-nine signatures published.
A two-page spread appeared simultaneously in the New York Times
and Washington Post, financed by the Committee of the Turkish
Associations.
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
There isnt any truth in this claim. There are always discussions amongst
historians, but one fact is indisputable: Prof. Lewis was not found guilty.
In an interview with the French newspaper, he stated that there was no
master plan of the Ottoman Empire to exterminate the Armenians. Prof.
Lewis himself wrote in his books about the deportation of the Armenians
in WWI and the terrible massacre that accompanied it in many places. He
mentioned and continues to mention the suffering of the Armenians, and
in the pastbefore the lessening of the meaning of the word Holocausthe even used it in the Armenian context. But, on the basis of his
knowledge on the content of the Ottoman archives, he found that there
was no master-plan to exterminate the Armenians, like the example of the
Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people. In Europe and in the USA,
Armenian activists try by all means to prevent historical debatetheir
aim is to put the Armenian tragedy in the same line with the Jewish
Holocaust. Prof. Lewis did not change his view that the Jewish Holocaust
is unique. His sayings have made him a target for these activists. They
tried to bring a criminal case against him for denying genocideironically using the same criminal statute that forbids the denying of the
Jewish Holocaust. Their effort failed. The court refused to deal with the
accusation (therefore, Prof. Lewis was not judged and certainly was not
condemned for denying genocide). At the same time, Armenian organizations filed a series of civil suits against Prof. Lewis, charging him with
inflicting emotional pain. Three charges were raised against him. Two
failed and the Armenian organizations were asked to pay Prof. Lewis
expenses. On the third charge the court in Paris ruled that Prof. Lewis did
not neglect his responsibility as an historian, but made a mistake by not
presenting in his interview the attitudes which go against his thesis, and
therefore hurt the feelings of the Armenian community. He was ordered to
pay punitive damage of one franc and court costs.
It must be noted that French historians considered bringing Lewis before the court an aggressive involvement of the legal system in an academic
matter. The upper echelon of the intellectual community in France reacted
by protesting: during the trial, Lewis was chosen to be an honored member
of the Institut de France. The result of the third civil case against him led to
complaints. The British historian Francis Robinson wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that while he did not wish to deny the suffering of the
Armenians, it was a scandalous judgment against an historian that is familiar with the content of the Ottoman archives more than any court in Paris,
or even the Armenians themselves.
We share this view and we believe that many of our colleagues in the
academic community in Israel share this view.
The letter ended with the statement: We note in our calendars January
20, the day when we intend to celebrate with him and with you the
awarding of honorary citizenship.
235
236
Noted orientalists like Gabi Varburg, former rector of Haifa University, and Amnon Cohen, who holds the Eliahu Elath Chair of the
History of the Muslim People, praised his academic works. Cohen
believed that Lewis was attacked because of his clear and public
pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli attitudes.
Aaron Dothan, who holds the chair for the History of the Hebrew
Language at Tel Aviv University, described him as enlightened humanist, proud of his Jewish heritage which he promotes zealously, and
praised his vivid public support for the State of Israel. After attacking
the informative article in Tel Aviv Magazine (August 8, 1997) he wrote:
From reading the article we learned that Bernard Lewis did not deny the
Armenian holocaust, but only set it apart from the Jewish Holocaust. In
doing this he demonstrated his opinion as a proud Jew. This view is shared
by the majority of the Jewish people. There is no and there was no Holocaust like the one experienced by the Jewish People. This does not lessen
the genocide and terrible massacre of the Armenians by the Turks. It is
absurd that of all places, in the State of Israel, a man will be dishonored
because of presenting an accepted Jewish point of view.
237
yet been fixedand when a nation struggles for its independence, the end
justifies the means. At that time the so called evidence of planning the massacre of all the Armenians in the Empire came to light through a series of
letters allegedly sent by the Young Turk government to different functionaries in East Anatolia. The telegrams, known as the Andonian Telegrams after Aram Andonian, the man who published them, and probably
wrote them, were also known as the telegrams of Talaat Pasha. Even
though Andonian wrote quite sincerely that he published the telegrams
for propaganda purposes and to strengthen the Armenian case in the
world, they have become a realistic and truthful cornerstone in the Armenian consciousness itself. In 1983 two Turkish scholars proved this
falsification. The evidence was so strong, that even the Armenians stopped
using these telegrams for substantiating their claims. But the consciousness did not change.
Approximately at the same time the diaries of Henry Morgenthau, who
was the U.S. Ambassador in Constantinople during the period of the massacre, in 1915, were also published. These diaries were also used as evidence (although less strong than the telegrams of Andonian) of the existence of such a plan. Examining the diaries in his handwriting, his personal
letters and his reports to the U.S. government during his post, prove, above
any doubt, that the printed diaries were rewritten to justify the entrance of
Woodrow Wilson (and the United States) into the war.
The voice of the canons stopped and an Armenian state in Anatolia was
not created. Even the short-lived state that was created on the ruins of Czarist Russia was conquered by the Bolsheviks. The Armenian Nation, and
especially the survivors of the massacre, and the revolutionary activists
that succeeded in escaping to the West and to the USA, continued to exist
only as islands in the midst of other countries and cultures (except for the
Armenian Republic in the Soviet Union).
Two central motives activate those groups. One is the need to prove that
the bloodshed was not in vain, meaning that all the innocents who were
murdered, were starved to death, and sold for slavery in East Anatolia,
were not victims of an illusion of national independence in a country in
which they were a numerical minorityan illusion designed and cultivated
by their urban elites and their organizations in exile. There was a need to
prove that there was no other option. The Ottomans, and now, after the
creation of the Turkish Republic, the Turks, intended to slaughter all of
them. This image of victim without any control [over his destinyY.A.]
was needed for the restoration of the spirit of the survivors and especially
for the restoration of the unity of their group. Their dispersion made the
memory of the massacre and the image of victim the bonding agent that
united all those islands.
Until the second half of the 1960s the memory of the massacre and its
significance bothered the Armenians in their communities. The majority of
the literature written on the subject was in the Armenian language and was
read only by Armenians.
238
239
prove it by two means: one, historical writing, this time in Western languages. They have made selective use of true documents and in serious studies, in the copy and paste method as well as using false documents like
Andonians telegrams. The second means is professional discrediting, intimidation and threatening against any scholar who dared to examine their
claims in the accepted historiological methodology.
The correlation between the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian holocaust have become inseparable in the collective identity of the Armenians.
Everybody who tried to examine it was regarded immediately as a denier,
not only of certain elements or aspects of their claim, but a denier of the
massacre itself.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government did not stay inactive. The study of
the 19th century was abandoned in Turkey until the 1960s. The main study
focused on the 14th to 16th centuries, the years of glamour of the Empire,
which could have been a positive inspiration for building the identity, the
unity and the pride of the new republic. The awakening of the Armenians
led, interestingly, to the study of this important period in Turkey. Turkey
opened the Ottoman archives for study and published volumes of documents from their archives, and encouraged the studying of this period in
general, and the Turkish-Armenian conflict in particular.
The atmosphere that was created and still exists in the community of
historians is not positive. This reality interferes with an open discussion on
the history of that conflict. This atmosphere has existed for quite a long
time in Europe and the USA and was transferred in recent years to Israel.
In the review Historia (published in Jerusalem by the Historical Society of Israel), number 10, August 2002, Minna Rozen published a
long article (fifty-five pages) titled Armenia Armenia, in which she
deals, in her words in the English summary of the article, with two
books dedicated to aspects of the deportation and mass killing of the
Armenians living in Eastern Anatolia in 1915-16 by the Young Turk
regime.29 The books are my book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide, published in Hebrew in 1995, and
Vahakn N. Dadrians The History of the Aremenian Genocide: Ethnic
Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, also published
in 1995. Although the term genocide is included in the title or subtitle
of both books, she refers to what happened to the Armenians as deportation and mass killing or massacre to differentiate it from the Jewish
Holocaust. Rozen repeats in detail what she wrote about the issue before, and practically blames the Armenians for what happened to them.
We will refer later to the claims about the validity of sources and
the evidence regarding the Armenian Genocide as well as to the
attitude of the Armenians regarding Nazi Germany (see the sec-
240
tions The Validity of Sources and the Evidence Regarding the Armenian Genocide and The Attitudes of Turks and Armenians to
Nazi Germany).
The Public Debate
The Armenian community in Israel was involved, this time actively, in the debate on this issue, more than they had ever been
involved in previous debates. Armenian and non-Armenian academics and scholars from abroad took part in the debate.
In a memorandum published by the Armenian Case Committee in
Israel (September 1, 1997) they wrote:
The Armenian Community in Israel and the World strongly protest the
awarding of Honorary Citizen by the Municipality of Tel-Aviv to Professor
Bernard Lewis, whose outright position in denying the Armenian Genocide
brings disgrace to the discipline of history as well as to World civilization.
Professor Lewis has been known as a historian who flagrantly and in a
blatant manner distorts the Armenian Genocide by being totally biased toward the Turkish position. However, the International Community at all
levels has recognized and acknowledged the atrocious crime committed
against the Armenian people living peacefully in the Ottoman Empire in
1915. This heinous crime went unpunished, and it is so ironic that those
who deny it are being rewarded and commended for their work. We, the
Armenian people, plead with the International Community as well as the
Israeli public to stop such awards given to people who dont deserve commendations and to put pressures on their government to rectify the wrong
deeds committed against one of the oldest and peaceful peoples of the
worldthe Armenians.
In a letter to the mayor of Tel Aviv (September 1, 1997) the Armenian Case Community wrote:
It is with great dismay that we, the Armenian Community in Israel as well
as the Armenians living around the world, received the news of granting
Professor Bernard Lewis an esteemed prize, the Honorary Citizenship, by
the Municipality of Tel-Aviv.
As you may know, Professor Lewis has been known for his outright
position in the denial of the Armenian Genocide, a heinous crime that was
acknowledged by the International Community. Prof. Lewis time and again,
flagrantly and blatantly distorts the Armenian genocide and bolsters the
Turkish position in every academic as well as political conference. He has
been appointed by the Turkish Government to direct the Turkish Studies
Center in the U.S., with the prime objective of producing anti-Armenian
241
242
Six academics from the United States sent a letter (August 29, 1997)
to the Tel Aviv City Council hoping that, Before conferring on Professor Bernard Lewis the honorary citizenship of Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality, you will consider his record as a denier of the Armenian Genocide.
Although at one time a deservedly acclaimed historian, Prof. Lewis in recent decades has increasingly become a propagandist for Turkey. He has
trained a cadre of mercenary academics whom some American universities
have hired to fill tenured Chairs of modern Turkish history paid for by the
Turkish government to cleanse its sordid record on human rights. The most
notorious of these, Heath Lowry, appointed to Princeton University with
scant academic credentials, after a career directing a Turkish propaganda
mill disguised as educational, we have learned was appointed at Professor Lewis urging.
The court case against Professor Lewis in France, widely covered in the
world press, was an international scandal drawing deservedly harsh criticism of Prof. Lewis from distinguished scholars in the U.S. and abroad.
243
The article Bauer referred to is closely related to our issue Professional Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide.30
The Debate in Haaretz
Another component in the Lewis affair was the debate in the
respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The articles were published
in the cultural and literary supplement every Friday during four
weeks of August-September 1997.31 This was the first and only quasiacademic public debate in Israeli society over the content of the
Armenian Genocide. After four weeks the editor of the supplement,
Beni Ziffer, decided to stop the debate, even though he did in fact
receive more reactions.
The debate had echoes abroad. In October 1997, the Belgian magazine Espace Orient published the full translation in French of seven
articles that were published in the first three weeks. They were published under the title of La concurrence des victims [The concurrence of victims], making reference to the book by the philosopher
Jean-Michel Chaumont (La dcouverte, 1997), which itself has generated a heated debate in Europe. The French weekly Courrier International also published part of the debate.32
Several topics were aired during the course of the debates. These
included geopolitical considerations, the notion of genocide, and the
controversy about the uniqueness of the Holocaustif and what makes
the Holocaust a uniquely unique genocide, lunique unicit. The role
of the legal system regarding historical debates was also raised, as well
as questions such as: what is genocide, the reality of the Armenian Genocide, the evidence and the validity regarding the Armenian Genocide,
the meaning of Professor Lewis views, and the legal meaning of the
decision of the civil court.
We will now examine some of the more basic and principal issues in
greater detail.
Geopolitical Considerations
Some participants in the debate (Porath, September 5; Goren,
244
245
246
247
Was It a Genocide?
Porath goes further into the logic of Lewis arguments, which is consistent with the meaning of his statements. Porath speaks of alleged
genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks. According to him, we are
speaking of a terrible tragedy, but there is by no means a comparison
with the fate of the Jews during WWII. We have to speak not about
genocide, but rather about harsh measures taken by the Ottoman Empire against a national minority that supported the enemy during wartime, and for thirty years had tried to achieve national independence at
the expense of Ottoman territories. After praising the academic qualities of Lewis, who, we are told, has studied the Armenian affair deeply,
Porath writes (September 5): He [Lewis] honestly and courageously
came to the conclusion that genocide against the Armenians has not
been committed.
He supports his arguments by claiming that there was no racial
ideology directed against the Armenians. The Ottoman Turks did
248
not try to exterminate all the Armenians, but the Armenians of East
Anatolia, who were a fifth column and supported the Russians.
Therefore, he argues, they were exiled systematically from the border area. On the road many died of starvation, dehydration, and
diseases, and others by the hand of the Kurdish tribes. Porath believes that later on, Armenian propagandists spread the notion that
two million Armenians were murdered. Porath goes on further to
quote Dr. Justin McCarthys study: A first class Armenian historian-demographer has proved recently in a deep astonishing study,
that the number of the Armenians who died [he uses this word and
not murdered or any equivalentY.A.] was half a milliona
quarter to a third of the number of the Armenians before the war.
George Hintlian, an Armenian historian living in the Armenian
Quarter in Jerusalem, responded in Haaretz (September 5, 1997)
that Porath should have been better informed than to quote McCarthy,
who, with Heath Lowry, Lewis successor in Princeton, leads the list
of deniers of the Armenian Genocide.
Why does Dr. Porath need the opinion of deceased colleagues?
Hintlian warns that many Hebrew University students in the future may
be misled by the denial literature from the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv,
which is on the Hebrew University bookshelves. It seems that Dr. Porath
finds these books quite objective.
In his letter to the editor mentioned above (see note 27), the French
historian and specialist on the Armenian Genocide, Yves Ternon, analyzed in detail the degr zero de la ngation by Porath, which is very far
below Lewis academic denial.
Israel Charny (September 19, 1997), who was a witness for the prosecution in Lewis court trial in France, repeated what he had said there:
As a Jew and as a scientist I am ashamed of Bernard Lewis. Charny
finds it difficult to decide what is more shameful and shocking: the
repeated denials by Lewis and his refusal to take back his words, or the
false information and protection given to him by Israeli orientalists.
What is the Genocide of the Armenians?
In a letter sent by Bernard Lewis to the president of the 17th Court
(Palace of Justice, Paris, October 21, 1994) he wrote: If the term genocide is still used in its original sensesystematic planned extermination of a people as it was undertaken and almost achieved in Nazi
249
Europethen the application of this term to the Armenian case has not
been demonstrated. If, on the contrary, the term simply designates a
great number of casualties and deaths, I cannot dispute its application.
And indeed, Yaacob Goren, historian of the labor Zionist movement, wrote (September 19, 1997) that if we limit the meaning of
the term genocide to the complete extermination of a peoplethat
means killing every member of the people that the killers can reach
we can define the acts of the Turks toward the Armenians as a massacre and not as genocide.
The issue of the definition of genocide seems to occupy a very
central part in genocide studies and the lions share of its literature.
It seems also that the definitional and terminological dispute has
been conducted under the giant shadow that the Shoah casts over
most genocide thinking. Whether consciously or not, most scholars use the Shoah as a basic model, a paradigm, or as the ideal
type of the phenomenon of genocide. This may be misleading as
the Shoah has unique characteristics among genocides.
Both Lewis and Gorens use of the term genocide is very different
from the definition of the United Nations Genocide Convention and the
meaning of the term used by most scholars of genocide. (According to
Gorens definition, it can be argued that even the Holocaust was not a
genocide.)
The United Nations Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of Genocide defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. In 1997, the Association of Genocide Scholars voted
unanimously to confirm the validity of the Armenian Genocide,
and to underscore that the Armenian Genocide conforms to all of
the definitions of genocide stipulated in the United Nations Convention on Genocide (see Appendix B).
It seems that many Israeli scholars are not aware and are not familiar
with the vast literature of genocide studies in general, and the Armenian Genocide in particular.
The Jewish Aspect of the Lewis Trial in France as Seen by Israeli
Scholars
The Lewis trial in France had clear Jewish aspects. The Jewish
origins of Bernard Lewis played a considerable role in the non-dit
250
of the trialrivalry of suffering, concurrence of victims, opposition of Jewish memory regarding the Armenian suffering, and the
question of the uniqueness of the Holocaust.
Bernard Lewis was defended in court by a highly respected French
(Jewish) attorney, Thierry Levi (Lewis was never present in the court).
The names of Robert Faurisson, the Holocaust denier, and Jean-Marie
Le Pen, the extreme right-wing political leader who said that the gas
chambers were only a point de dtail in the history of World War II,
were raised in the court. They were condemned according to article
1382 of the French Civil Code, which calls for repairing the damage
caused to the victims of extermination, the survivors, and their families. Of course there are great differences between Lewis case and their
cases: Lewis is not a vulgar denier; he contests not the massacres but
their essence.
Attorney Thierry Lvy said: Bernard Lewis raised the question of
the Armenian genocide as a historian, not as a Jew. Nonetheless, I can
imagine that certain Armenians will not be unhappy [mcontents] to
achieve in this case the condemnation of a Jew for denial [ngationism].
Lvy went even further than Lewis in questioning the validity of the
Armenian Genocide. Like the deniers and the Turks, he asked about the
authenticity of Ambassador Morgenthaus diary and tried to discredit
it.
On the other side, the French-Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut,
who struggled against Holocaust denial, argued that Lewis used his
origins. He and other opponents of the Armenians instrumentalize the
Shoah. According to Finkielkraut, the Holocaust, Auschwitz, and the
mass extermination constitute a unique event. However, this is not a
reason to forget the Armenians and turn our eyes from Rwanda and
Bosnia. The fact that we say never again does not obligate us to raise
barbed wires around our memory. On the contrary, it obligates us to
remain vigilant, even more than others.35
The association between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish
Holocaust was also raised several times in the Israeli debate. Porath
claimed that the title of my first article, Honorary citizenship to a
denier of the Armenian holocaust [the term holocaust was chosen by the editor and not by me; I used the term Armenian GenocideY.A.] (Auron, August 29, 1997), included the word holocaust purposely to demonstrate the commonality of the Armenian
fate during WWI with the Jewish fate during WWII. This idea has
251
252
Israeli scholars of the Holocaust did not take part in this unique quasiacademic public debate about the Armenian Genocide. Efforts to debate the subject in academic symposia or conferences failed.
The Validity of Sources and the Evidence Regarding the Armenian
Genocide
We have already considered opinions such as Minna Rozens claim
regarding forgery of the Andonian Telegrams and the diaries of Henry
Morgenthau and questioning the validity of the historical sources. These
arguments were also raised by Israeli academics in some articles in
Haaretz.
253
254
As we have already mentioned, he also said that there are two sides
to the drama that took place on the borders of Turkey and Russia. None
of the committee members had any comments or reservations with what
the chairman said. The protocol of the meeting was sent to the editors
of the media in Israel.
It is interesting to note that Professor Vahakn Dadrian, whose academic work validating these sources was mentioned by Professor Abitbul
as leading him to question the reliability of the sources, said in an interview to the French newspaper Libration (June 22, 1996) that the Turkish archives had been purged. The director of the Turkish archive has
recently described the Genocide as Armenian fantasy. According to
him, said Dadrian, there is not one document that verifies the occurrence of the Genocide. Another interesting point is that Minister of
Education Amnon Rubinstein on several occasions publicly praised
255
256
257
258
He was one of the few people who tried to assist the Armenians, insofar as circumstances allowed, in order to contain the scope of their
destruction.
Morgenthaus numerous reports to the State Department and his postwar memoirs unambiguously confirm the genocidal intentions of the
leaders of the Young Turk regime and equally emphatically affirm the
reality of the intended genocidal outcome. He summarized his wartime
finding by incorporating in his book a chapter that bears the title: The
Murder of a Nation.41
Key elements in Morgenthaus testimony are confirmed and reinforced by those other American diplomats who succeeded in his post
for the remainder of the war. For instance, Abram Elkus, the next U.S.
Ambassador (he was also a Jew), on October 17, 1916, in a cipher telegram, reported to Washington deportations accompanied by studied cruelties continueforced conversions to Islam perseveringly
pushed, children and girls from deported families kidnapped Turkish
officials have now adopted and are executing the unchecked policy of
extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment
hardly surpassed even in Turkish history.42 One can ask what is the
proper definition for this descriptionwe can quote many like itif
not the term genocide.
The efforts of the Turks, including the Turkish government, to question the reliability of Morgenthau as a source aims to indirectly invalidate the Armenian Genocide story that is anchored on Morgenthaus
account. It is significant to mention that Heath W. Lowry is recognized
as a principal source in the attempts to discredit Morgenthau and thereby
give impetus to the Turkish endeavor to deny the Armenian Genocide.
His book, The Story behind Ambassador Morgenthaus Story, 43 is included in the Turkish ambassadors brief bibliography in the report to
the American Congressmen (Prior to voting on the resolution, you
may wish to familiarize yourself with the following texts).44
One final point has to be mentioned in this regard: Lowry was caught
ghosting for the Turkish ambassador in Washington regarding the denial of the Armenian Genocide, as was described by Smith, Markusen,
and Lifton (see chapter 2).45
Even the opinions about the telegrams of Talaat Pasha are not so
unanimous and are not rejected today by every serious historian, as
some Israeli scholars claim.46 For example, the opinion of the French
genocide scholar Yves Ternon, who wrote some books about the Armenian Genocide and studied closely the history of these documents,
259
260
The conclusion becomes inescapable that what one may be able to glean
from the Turkish archives is circumscribed and limited by what the authorities involved are arbitrarily and selectively willing to offer.
261
ers of war taken by the Nazis in their sweep eastwards. Early on,
the total number of recruits was 8,000; this number later grew, according to the book, to 20,000.51 The Turkish scholar continues writing: The
author of this book noted that this and other information he wrote is
confirmed by the champions of the Armenians, Christopher J. Walker,
who admits that the Armenians collaborated with the Nazis.52
When one reads Walkers book, ArmeniaThe Survival of a
Nation, one learns that these details are mentioned with a lot of
other information, including the number of Soviet Armenians serving as soldiers has been estimated at between 300,000 and 500,000,
and 20,000 Armenians served in the United States Army during the
war. Armenians outside their homeland also contributed to the establishment of the Soviet tank corps known as Sasuntzi Davit that fought
against the Forces of the Axis. On the other hand, Walker analyzed the
behavior of the Turks during the war, their behavior towards minorities, the affair of the Capital Levy Tax or Varlik Vengist, and the fascist
trends in Turkey during the war. In his opinion, Turkey was much
closer to Nazi Germany than to democratic Britain.
Although under the terms of the Anglo-Franco-Turkish treaty of
October 19, 1939 Turkey had pledged to join in a European conflict in
which Britain or France were engaged, it chose not to do so, and went
on to sign an agreement with Germany on June 18, 1941 which, while
not contradicting the earlier treaty, was directly opposed to it in spirit,
and fulsomely landed German-Turkish friendship. Walker concludes:
When the tardy and unwilling Turkish participation in the war (it declared war on Germany and Japan on 23 February 1945, not with the
intention of doing any fighting) was set against the massive sacrifice of
the Soviet Armenia, there was a feeling, as the war drew to an end, that
legitimate Armenian national claims deserved a measure of satisfaction,
something that they had been denied after the First World War.53
The French scholar Yves Ternon studied this issue, which is not
known and not spoken of even in Armenian circles.54 In his opinion,
the only substantial accusation of fascism (fascist deviation he calls
it) regarding the Armenians is the affair of tzeghagrons (in which
Dro and Nzhdeh [sometimes spelled Nejdeh] were involved).
Ternon estimates that among the Armenians who lived in Europe
in countries occupied by the Germans, the collaborators and the active
anti-Nazis were not more than in other nations, and that most Armenians in these countries did not take sides actively. The Oriental units,
262
also known as national units, or national legions of Turks, Muslims of the Caucasus, Georgians, and Armenians is, in his view,
another and different issue.
The following statement was made by Joris Versteeg, a Dutch
journalist working on a book about the lives of the men in the 812
Armenian battalion in Holland during 1943-1945 (this Armenian
battalion was stationed in Holland during most of the war years).
He sent it to me on September 11, 1997, with the permission to
publish it:
The number of Armenians in German military service during the Second
World War was about 18,000: 11,000 in field battalions and 7,000 in supply and other non-combat units, according to the former director of the
West German military archives J. Hoffman in his book Kaukasien 1942/43,
Das deutsche Heer und die Orientvlker der Sovjetunion (Freiburg 1991).
More important than numbers was the way these men came into German
military service. Like other Soviet nationalists, Armenian prisoners of war
faced genocidal conditions in the P.O.W. camps, specially in the first nine
months of the war against the Soviet Union. The first experiment with Zyklon
B in Auschwitz was executed on 600 Soviet P.O.W.s. More than 3 million
of the 5.7 million Soviet P.O.W.s died in German custody during the war.
Between November 1941 and January 1942 alone 500,000 died in German
hands in a racially motivated policy of murder, exhaustion and starvation.
In spring 1942, after 2 million had perished, conditions improved slightly
when German army commanders discovered that their P.O.W. treatment
worked counterproductively and improved Soviet fighting moral, and as
P.O.W.s were needed as workforce.
To save precious German blood the German army and Rosenbergs
Eastern Ministry began to draft Soviet P.O.W.s in German or in national
units from the survivors of the mass starvation. Called volunteers by the
Germans, being drafted was their way out of starvation or extermination.
The result for the Germans was mixed at best. There have been cases of
Armenians fighting the Red Army, but more numerous were examples of
revolts, defections and arrests in the Soviet Union, Poland, France, Holland
and other countries.
Several cases have been documented about Jewish Red Army soldiers
taken prisoners who were saved by Armenians. I interviewed one of them
in Israel recently, Josef Moisevich Kogan, who was saved by an Armenian
doctor, went into hiding in an Armenian battalion and escaped with help of
Armenians. Another Jew was one of the leaders of an underground movement in an Armenian battalion in Holland. Although Armenians officially
were declared Aryans, the notion of them being levantine traders, not
unlike the Jews, was deep-seated in Nazi circles, and racial purists along
with Hitler himself were prone to look upon the Armenians as non-Aryans, according to the American historian Alexander Dallin.
263
Speaking about military units from Soviet peoples, Hitler said: I dont
know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples (..)
I consider only the moslims to be reliable (..) All the others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider the formation of these battalions of
purely Caucasian peoples as very risky, while I dont see any danger in the
establishment of purely Moslim units (..) In spite of all the declarations
from Rosenberg and the military, I dont trust the Armenians either.
(Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945: A Study in Occupation Policies [London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1981, second edition], pp. 229, 251).
In the Armenian diaspora in occupied Europe and to a less extent among
Soviet P.O.W.s a collaboration with the Germans existed, but it should be
said that the mainstream of the Armenian nation convincingly sided with
the allies. In 1942 the BBC commentator and correspondent of the Sunday
Times in Moscow, Alexander Werth, noticed that the only fully pro-Soviet
and pro-Russian nation in the Caucasus arefor obvious historical reasonsthe Armenians. (Russia at War 1941-1945, New York, 1964). These
reasons were, of course, the fear of a repetition of the genocide by neighboring Turkey, which conducted a wait-and-see policy during the main
part of the war and would have invaded Armenia if it had taken the side
of Germany. The tragedy for the Armenian P.O.W.s who were forced to
enter the German army and in many cases had sabotaged or revolted
didnt end in 1945. Back in the USSR, practically all of them were condemned to forced labor in the Gulag. Those who were released in 1955 had
survived the camps of Hitler and Stalin.
It is clear that claims about association and even cooperation between the Armenians and the Nazis has a special significance for the
Jews: How could they support the murderers supporters? The subject,
important as it is, has to be studied in its context carefully and honestly
as much as is possible, and the fascism deviations, when and where
they existed, have to be noticed. But the question remains: why does
this issue have to be raised when we discuss an historical event that
happened more than twenty years earlier?
The claim that Turkey saved many Jews from the Nazis had the unstated premise that a people who showed such humanity could not have
committed a genocide. Turkish supporters claim that the Turkish people
had been outstanding in their humane and tolerant treatment of the Jewish
minority for 500 years following the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
and saved masses of Jews. There were those who claimed that not only
had Turkey refused to turn its Jews over to the Nazis, it had even served
as a refuge for persecuted Jews from European countries during
the Holocaust.
264
In this tat desprit in the Israeli academy, it is not at all surprising to find more examples of deniers views, especially among the
orientalists. One of them can be found in the academic publication
of Bek Azizs book, Intelligence and Espionage in Syria, Lebanon
and Palestine in World War 1913-1918. This book was published in
1991 by Bar Ilan University and Maarachot Publishing, which is a
publishing house related to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.55 Translation, introduction, and notes were written by Eliezer Tauber, an
orientalist from Bar Ilan University. In a note on page 314 one reads:
We have to note also that the term Armenian massacre is not correct
from the historical point of view and it does not stand up today to
critical scientific standards. There was no plan for the annihilation of
the Armenians. On the other hand, close to two million Muslims
lost their lives in East Anatolia in this [WWI] war, part of them at the
hands of the Armenians. Now the Armenian tragedy is not even a
massacre, let alone a genocide. Tauber is not far from claiming, like
some Turks, that the Armenians committed genocide against the Turks.
By quoting this statement in the newspaper Globes (July 7, 1995) in
an article called Did you know that Bernard Lewis was found guilty of
denying the Armenian Genocide?56 [As mentionedit should have
been written found liable and not found guiltyY.A.] I hoped to
start a heated debate. I went as far as to hope that someone, at least the
author of the note, would charge me with libel, but the Israeli academy
remained silent. It was not until the debate about awarding honorary
citizenship of the city of Tel Aviv to Bernard Lewis two years later
that the members of the academy spoke.
265
266
267
dent of Tel Aviv University. He categorically denied the accusations.64 Nevertheless, somebody did spread these false charges. In this
way the struggles among the academies in their ivory towers led
to a diplomatic and moral displacement.65
It was a strange situation: an allegation that somebody is pro Armenianwhich means that he recognizes the Armenian Genocide and
does not deny itcan be used as a weapon against him in the Israeli
academy. And more: for a distinguished Israeli scholar (he is not the
only one; his opponents in the academy used the same logic) to recognize the Armenian Genocide means being anti-Turkish, which in turn
means being pro-Armenian.
Furthermore, in an interview with the Turkish press, Toledano denied that he has ever expressed pro-Armenian views in international
conferences, claimed that he is a specialist of Ottoman history from the
sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, that he never explored the events
of WWI, and stated that he never disapproved of the Turkish version of
those events. That means that he never disapproved of Turkish denial of
the genocide.
In an interview with Haaretz he repeated the same views, continuing his efforts to get the nomination: Someone is trying to sabotage my
nomination by using a false tale.66 He is quoted as saying the day before:
I never criticized the Turkish government on the Armenian issue... I have
always supported Turkey, in every international academic forum that I have
participated and in every subject on the agenda. I dedicated my academic
career to studying the history of the Ottoman Empire, and in the frameworks of my studies I have contributed to the creation of a positive image
of the Ottoman heritage. Indeed, this is really a very strange way to look
upon the role of a scholar in academic forum.
What was the attitude of the State of Israel in this case? Israel tried to
understand and study the Turkish attitude. It was clear to the Israeli government that the accusations against Toledano were not correct, that he is not
anti-Turkish.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry tried to explain to the Turks that
Toledanos words were taken out of context, and their translation into
Turkish was far from accurate.67 The subject is treated in diplomatic
pipelines, in the spirit of the good relationship between the two countries, said the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry some weeks later.68
Nevertheless, in February 1998 another Israeli, Uri Bar-Ner, was
nominated to be the Israeli ambassador to Ankara.
268
269
also had ample responsibilities in Yad Vashem. Joining the committee were two other members of Yad Vashem. The steering committee authorized the script, and members of Yad Vashem worked very
closely with the producers of the film. It was financed by a foundation related to the Bronfman family in Canada, which dedicated a
very large budget to it.
The film emphasizes the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocausta
shade of difference. The beginning of the film deals with the question
of what is the difference between the Holocaust and other genocides or
massacres. Forty minutes of the film deal with the Jewish Holocaust.
The information is based on Nazi archives, films taken by the Allies,
still photographs, and specially filmed footage. Israeli scholars are interviewed at length explaining their points of view. The last ten minutes
deal with euthanasiathe mass murder of the mentally ill, retarded,
and physically disabled (project T4)with the genocide of the Roma
by the Nazis, and with the Armenian Genocide. One of the testimonies
presented in the film was that of Otto Rosenberg, a Roma survivor of
Auschwitz, who lost all his family there. Rosenberg says that in the
extermination camps there was no difference between the behavior of
the Nazis towards the Jews and towards the Roma and that what happened to us happened to them. Referring to this statement, Professor
Bauer and Professor Moshe Zimmerman of the Hebrew University compare the difference between the Jewish Holocaust and the genocide of
the Roma. The last three minutes of the film deal with the genocide
of the Armenians. George Hintilian, an Armenian historian, states
that the crime, in its intensity and its totality, is identical, but Professor Bauer and the narrator point out the differences. In any case,
the film represents clearly the idea that there is a principal basic
difference between the Holocaust and any other destruction of human
beings in history.
In 1993, after an internal screening of the film in Yad Vashem, objections to the future use of the film began. Some people wanted to
take out some sections from the film, especially those dealing with the
Armenians, and to make corrections. It seems that the comparison between the Holocaust and other genocides was too much for some of
them. Professor Bauer tried to find a compromise, but refused to take out
the section about the Armenians. In the end, the film was banned and the
entire project was cancelled. It has been almost impossible to receive
any accurate information regarding the chain of events that led to the
270
271
272
cation Minister Yossi Sarid regarding the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide, as stated by him on April 24, 2000.
The attitude of Yad Vashem in regard to these issues is not only significantly different from the attitude of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, but also from, for example, the attitude of the
Museum of Jewish HeritageA Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in
New York, which is an American-Jewish institute. Both are more open
to the inclusion of the memory of the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis
and also to the Armenian Genocide.74
Other Cases of Avoiding the Armenian Genocide in the Academy
It is illustrative to look at the special issue of the respected journal
Zmaniman historical quarterly published by the School of History at
Tel-Aviv University dedicated to World War I: The Great War: 80 Years
After. This issue is aimed at examining the impact of the war from
different perspectives. The Armenian Genocide is not one of them. The
issue is mentioned in a single sentence in an article by Haggai Erlich,
who was always sensitive to mentioning the Armenian Genocide: Real
atrocities were experienced by minorities, primarily Armenians; their
horrible massacre committed by the Ottomans left WWI as a scar in
this region.75
Not mentioning the Genocide among the themes that are dealt with
in the quarterly in this context is significant. Maybe the respected historians were not aware of this event when they looked at WWI from the
perspective of eighty years. Can we compare it to a respected historical
quarterly published by a respected school of history in a respected university in Europe or the United States that would deal with WWII without adequate referenceor even without any referenceto the Holocaust?
The avoidance of almost any reference to the Armenian Genocide
can also be found in the Israeli-Turkish International Colloquy, titled
The First World WarMiddle Eastern Perspectives, held at Tel-Aviv
University on April 3-6, 2000, with the second half held in Istanbul on
April 9-12, 2000.
The sponsors of this academic colloquy were the following: National
Information Center, the Israeli Security Ministry, the Israeli Foreign
Ministry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv Municipality, Beer Sheva Municipality, IDADepartment of History, the Research Institute of Mili-
273
tary History, the Israeli Society for Military History by Tel Aviv
University, and Turkish Army Central Command, the Branch of
Military History and Strategic Studies.
The involvement of different organizations and institutions in the
colloquy is a subject in itself. Among the different topics of dozens of
lectures during the symposium, there were those that touched different political, strategic, and military aspects. The final session even
was titled Man in War, and another lecture was about women,
peace, and war in Turkey during the war. The Armenian issue was
not on the agenda. Can we imagine the uproar if an academic colloquy was to be held in a distinguished German university about World
War II dealing with European perspectives, and the Jewish Holocaust
was not mentioned?
In this situation in which the absolute majority of Israeli academics
stays silent in the debate over the Armenian Genocide, and part of them
indirectly and directly deny it, it is not surprising that the Armenian
United Committee of Jerusalem decided to publish on April 24, 2000
an open letter to Israeli intellectuals and academics, in which the following is written:
On the one hand, for the last two decades now, the majority of Israeli intellectuals have been hesitant to take clear-cut positions vis--vis the Armenian Genocide.
On the other hand, some have been articulate in favor of the Armenian
Genocide, both in Israel and abroad, while another group, though marginal, confusing political interests with ethical principles, has been consciously ambivalent about it. This particular group (mainly professors) tends
to use official Turkish arguments, which border on denial of the Armenian
Genocide. Though their numbers are few, their impact has long-term consequences on the Israeli public.
In the past, within Israeli society, it was inconceivable to question the
Armenian Genocide, as it was a society educated on the writings of Henry
Morgenthau, Franz Werfel, Avshalom Feinberg and Sarah Aharonson [members of the Jewish Nili Group during World War IY.A.] (all witnesses of
the Armenian Genocide).
Today, the unfortunate fact is that most Israeli intellectuals are indifferent to issues affecting the status of the Armenian Genocide in Israel.
Because of the apathy and silence of the majority of Israeli intellectuals,
1. The Armenian Genocide is not yet recognized by the Israeli parliament.
2. The Armenian Genocide is not being taught in Israeli universities
and high schools (despite the fact that textbooks have been prepared).
274
But we have to mention again that some progress has recently been
made. Currently two university curricula about genocide, with a clear
reference to the Armenian Genocide, are being written at the Open
University of Israel (see chapter 6). An evening commemorating the
Armenian Genocide was held on April 24, 2002 at the Hebrew University faculty club. The event Life after Death: Vitality and Creativity
after the Armenian Genocide was presented by the Hebrew University
Armenian study program. This program was founded in 1967 and currently offers degrees at the Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral levels. To
the best of my knowledge it is the first time that a commemorative
event for the Armenian Genocide took place at an Israeli University.
It has also to be emphasized again that there are in Israeli academic circles scholars who have criticized the attitude of the State
and the attitudes of some of their colleagues, as we can see in this
chapter and in the chapter regarding education.
And finally, although I argue that historians have a great responsibility to the truth, I do not mean to claim that well-meaning scholars who
remain unconvinced by either the Turkish or the Armenian explanations are deniers. It is the nature of academic inquiry to remain skeptical in lieu of strong evidence. And, given the likelihood that the Turkish archives have been purged of any incriminating evidence, it is
possible that scholars using that as a resource have seen no state evidence to eliminate Armenians. It is my view that the nature of
historical debate must always strive at the Truth. In order to do so it
must not be swayed either way by personal convictions. In my view,
275
Jewish scholars have the responsibility to struggle against the denial of the Armenian Genocide, or any other committed genocide,
in the same way as they have to struggle against the denial of the
Holocaust.
The American linguist and activist Noam Chomsky proposes a
distinction between the commissar and the dissident. These distinctions go back to the origins of recorded history, as we can find in
the Platonic Dialogues, or even more dramatically in the Bible. The
intellectuals who gained respect and honor from the establishment
at the time were those who were condemned centuries later as false
prophetsthe countries, the commissars. Those who came to be
honored much later as the prophets received rather different treatment at the time. They told the truth about things that matter, ranging from geopolitical analysis to moral values, and suffered the
punishment that is meted out to those who commit the sin of honesty and integrity.76
Chomskys attitude towards the deniers of the Holocaust in the
principle of liberty of expression is questionable and debatable.77
Nonetheless, according to him, in his essay Writers and Intellectual Responsibility, the more crucial aspects of the question are
seeking and telling the truth about matters of human significance.
The obligation to do so may seem transparent, but it is not, at least
in certain cultures, including that of this writer. Within that society,
the value system imposed by authority held that the responsibility
of the intellectual is to serve power interests: to record with a show
of horror the terrible deeds (real or alleged) of designated enemies,
and to conceal or prettify the crimes of the state and its agents.78
Chomsky blames the patterns of behavior and the attitude of American intellectuals regarding the Vietnam War, the genocide in East Timor,
and the genocide in Cambodia, as well as the American historiography
regarding the extermination of Native Americans. According to him,
the responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the
truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do
something about them.
Another very significant point that Chomsky raises is the audience. He strongly disagrees with the slogan Speak truth to power:
It is a waste of time and a pointless pursuit to speak truth to those
who exercise power in coercive institutionstruths that they already know well enough, for the most part.79
276
4.
5.
6.
Lewis Coser, Men and Ideas: A Sociologists View (New York: Free Press,
1965), p. viii.
Lewis Feuer, What Is an Intellectual? in The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals: Theory, Method and Case Study, edited by Alexander Gello
(Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976), p. 48.
Charny, 2001, op. cit. See also Israel W. Charny and Daphna Fromer, A
Follow-Up of the Sixty-Nine Scholars who Signed an Advertisement Questioning the Armenian Genocide, Internet on the Holocaust and Genocide 26/26, April 1990, pp. 6-7, and Israel W. Charny and Daphna Fromer,
Denying the Armenian Genocide: Patterns of Thinking as Defence Mechanisms, Patterns of Prejudice, 32 (1) 1998, pp. 39-49.
The following pages are based, partly, on the reports of the New York
Times which covered the issue several times and on The Book of the
International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, Book One:
The Conference Program and Crisis, International Conference on
the Holocaust and Genocide, Tel Aviv, Israel. The book was edited
by Israel Charny, who convened the conferencethe subtitle of which
was Towards the Understanding, Intervention and Prevention of
Genocide. Charnys view of the chain of events appears in the book
and includes in detail the pressures that were applied against the
organizers of the conference, and the subsequent cancellation of the
participation of a number of central personalities, including Elie
Wiesel, who was the president of the Organizing Committee, and the
chairman of Yad Vashem. Ibid., pp. 269-316. Charny continues his
efforts in the spirit of the initiative for the conference in 1982 in
the framework of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in
Jerusalem.
Israelis Said to Oppose Parley after Threat to Turkish Jews, The New
York Times, June 3, 1982.
Genocide Meeting to Go Ahead Despite Threats from Turkey, Jerusalem Post, June 4, 1982.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
277
Armenians to Take Part in Tel Aviv Seminar, The New York Times, June
10, 1982.
Genocide Parley with Armenians to Proceed, The New York Times, June
4, 1982.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Sukru Elekdag, Turkish ambassador in Washington, Turkeys Jews Are
under No Threat, letter to the editor, The New York Times, June 10, 1982.
Turkish Threats to U.S. Reported, The New York Times, June 22, 1982.
See also Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory, 1995 (op. cit.), pp.
229-239, and others.
Nahum Barnea, Davar, June 4, 1982.
Amos Eylon, Their Holocaust, Haaretz, June 11, 1982.
Yitzhak Arad, Amos Elon, We and the Armenians, Haaretz, June 29,
1982.
Genocide Seminar, Opposed by Israel, Opens, The New York Times, June
22, 1982.
Charny, 1982, pp. 209-210.
Israel Amrani, A Little Help to Friends, Haaretz, April 20, 1990; Ronit
Matalon, To us silence is not permitted, Haaretz, October 27, 1989.
Ibid.
Quoted from Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London,
Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1968, second edition), p.
356. This text appeared in the first and second English editions
See among others, Yves Ternon, Freedom and Responsibility of the Historian, in Remembrance and Denial, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), pp. 237-248; Rouben
Adalian, The Ramifications in the United States of the 1995 French court
decision on the denial of the Armenian Genocide and Princeton University, Revue du Monde Armnien Moderne et contemporain, 1997, pp.
99-122.
Le Monde, (excerpts from an interview with Bernard Lewis), November
16, 1993.
Nathaniel Herzberg, Bernard Lewis condamn pour avoir ni la ralit
du gnocide Armnien, Le Monde, June 23, 1995.
Motti Danos, How Roni Milo (almost) awarded an honorary citizenship
to a denier of the Armenian holocaust, Tel Aviv Magazine, August 8,
1997.
Motti Danos, Affair LewisThird Round. Milo has no majority on granting Honorary citizen to Prof. Lewis, Tel Aviv Magazine, September 6,
1997.
Alexander Soumech, Thousands of Armenians called on Israel to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Haaretz, April 26, 1998.
Motti Danos, op. cit., September 6, 1997.
Minna Rozen, Armenia, Armenia, Historia,10, August 2002, pp. 35-90.
My answer, as well as Dadrians, will be published in number 12.
278
30. Roger Smith, Eric Markusen, and Robert Jay Lifton, Professional Ethics
and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust and Genocide
Studies 9, Spring 1995, pp. 1-22.
31. Except the article of Asher Susser, Denial and Deceit, which was published in Haaretz on Sunday, August 31, 1997, and included comments
on the article of Yair Auron, Honorary Citizenship to a Denier of the
Armenian Holocaust? It should to be noted that Aurons article was edited, taking into consideration the possibility of a libel suit.
Thanks to the insistence of the editor of the literary supplement, Beny
Zifer, the first article in the series was published. Susser probably read the
article before its publication and could publish his reaction about it the
day after.
The articles were: Yair Auron, Honorary Citizenship to a denier of the
Armenian Holocaust? August 29; Israel Gershoni and Shlomo Sand,
From Bernard Lazare to Bernard Lewis: Genocide and History, September 5; Yehoshua Porath, Really a Genocide? September 5; Amnon
Cohen, Bernard Lewis, Genocide and Defamation, September 12; Martin Kramer, The Obligation of the Historian, September 12; Avrom
Yudowitch, Unpardonable fault, September 12; George Hintlian, Seventy Members of My Family Lost Their Lives, September 12; Boaz
Shoshan, The Question Is Still Open, September 19; Uri Avneri, Character Assassination? What Character? September 19; Yaacob Goren,
Jamal Pasha and the Yishuv, September 12; Israel Charny, I Am
Ashamed of Bernard Lewis, September 19.
32. La Concurrence des Victimes, Espace Orient No. 26, October 1997, pp.
10-21; Controversy: must we speak about Genocide of the Armenians?
Courier International, No. 375, January 8-14, 1998. The weekly published parts of the articles of Porath and Gershoni and Sand.
In an Open Letter to the editor of Courrier International, the French
historian and specialist of the Armenian Genocide, Yves Ternon, criticized the title the editor gave to the controversy. Yves Ternon, Open
Letter to the Editor of Courrier International, Haratch, January 13,
1998.
33. It is interesting to note that at the end of the year 2000, an Israeli historian
was sued for libel in the Tel Aviv District Court because he wrote in his
Masters thesis that there was evidence that soldiers had massacred some
200 residents of the coastal village of Tantura during Israels War of Independence in 1948. The affair evoked many reactions and the question of
whether the legal system has the right to interfere in an academic issue
was also raised. The court ordered the author of the thesis to apologize to
the veterans of this unit, who charged him with libel, and to pay them
indemnities, but he refused to obey and claimed he had new evidence
regarding the killing of the civilian population. The affair was not yet
closed as of March 2003.
34. Letters by Israel Charny to Bernard Lewis, December 27, 1994 and May
22, 1995; see Internet on the Holocaust and Genocide, Special Triple 10th
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
279
Anniversary 1985-1995 Issue 54/55/56, April 1995. Excerpts from a letter by Professor Bernard Lewis to the president of the 17th Court, Palace of
Justice, Paris, 21 October, 1994, C-9; Letter from Israel W. Charny to
Bernard Lewis, December 27, 1994, C-10.
Claude Askolovitch and Laurent Neumann, Mmoire Juive contre
douleur Armnien [Jewish Memory against Armenian Pain], Lvnement
du Jeudi, May 18-24, 1995.
Official protocol of the meeting of the Academic Committee on History,
held on January 19, 1995, the Pedagogical Secretariat, Ministry of Education.
Letter of the Turkish ambassador in Washington, Baki Ilkin, May 27, 1999,
in Vahakn N. Dadrian, Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge, MA and Toronto: The Zoryan Institute, 1999),
Appendix 1, pp. 59-74.
Op. cit., Appendix 2, pp. 75-76.
Auron, 2000, pp. 121-149.
Ibid, pp. 150-153.
Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthaus Story (New York:
Doubleday, 1918), p. 301.
U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.4016/299.
Heath W. Lowry, The Story behind Ambassador Morgenthaus Story
(Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990). This text was given in 2001 to an Israeli minister by the Turkish Ambassador in Tel Aviv.
See Henry Morgenthau Sr. Collection, Library of Congress Manuscripts
Division, Washington D.C. The diaries are on reels 5 and 6. A published
version is United States Diplomacy on the Bosphorus: The Diaries of
Ambassador Morgenthau 1913-1916, edited by Ara Sarafian (Ann Arbor:
Gomidas Institute Books, 2002). I wish to thank Ara Sarafian for providing this material.
Smith, Markusen, and Lifton, 1995 (op. cit. note 30).
See, for example, Sinasi Orel and Sreyya Yuca, Affaires armniennes,
les tlgrammes de Talaat PachaFait historique ou fiction? Socit
turque dhistoire, Triangle, 1983; Vahakn N. Dadrian, Documentation of
the Armenian Genocide in Turkish Sources, in Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, vol. 2, edited by Israel W. Charny (New York: Facts
On File, 1991); Dadrian, The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World
War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 18, No. 3, 1986. Dadrian
rejected the conclusions of these Turkish historians but revealed many
errors that Andonian had made in the transcription of the telegrams in the
three versions (Armenian, French, and English), which pertained more to
the form than the foundation of the documents.
Yves Ternon, La qualit de la prevueA propos des documents Andonian
et la petite phrase dHitler, Lactualit du Gnocide des Armniens (Paris:
Edipol, 1999), pp. 135-142. See also Yves Ternon, Enqute sur la ngation
dun gnocide (Marseille: Parenthses, 1989), pp. 25-33.
280
48. Ara Sarafian, The Issue of Access to the Ottoman Archives, Zeitschrift
fr Trkeistudien 6, no. 1, 1993.
49. Dadrian, 1999, op. cit., pp. 28-29. He provides detailed bibliographic
references for his comments.
50. Salhi Sonyel, The Great War and the Tragedy of Anatolia: Turks and Armenians in the Maelstrom of Major Powers (Ankara: Turkish Historical
Society Printing House, 2000). This so-called academic publication was
given to an Israeli minister by the Turkish ambassador of Turkey in Israel.
51. Ibid., p. 183.
52. Ibid., p. 182.
53. Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation (London:
Routledge, 1990, revised second edition), pp. 355-360.
54. Yves Ternon, La Cause Armnienne (Paris: Le Seuil, 1983) pp. 125-134.
55. Bek Aziz, Intelligence and espionage in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine in
World War 1913-1918 (Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University and Maarachot, 1991),
translated, introduced, and noted by Eliezer Tauber.
56. Yair Auron, Did You Know that Bernard Lewis Was Found Guilty of
Denial of the Armenian Genocide? GlobesCultural and Communication Supplement, July 7, 1995.
57. Ariel Horowitz, Letter to the Members of the History Committee, February 8, 1995.
58. Henry Huttenbach, Word Games: Avoiding Genocide, The Genocide
Forum (A Platform for Post-Holocaust Commentary), Vol. 7, No. 2, November-December 2000.
59. Arye Dayan, Killing Ambassador and then Rest, Kol Hair, October 10,
1997.
60. Patrick Cockburn, Holocaust that Israel would rather ignore, Independent, October 18, 1997.
61. Arye Dayan (op. cit).
62. Toledano, the intended ambassador to Turkey: Somebody tries to sabotage my nomination, Haaretz, September 10, 1997 (no author name indicated).
63. Yaacov Achimeir, Extremely Ugly Affair, Maariv, October 13, 1997.
64. Arye Dayan (op. cit.).
65. Ibid.
66. Haaretz, September 10, 1997.
67. Oded Granot, The Turks refuse to approve the nomination of the Israeli
Ambassador in Ankara, Maariv, September 9, 1997.
68. Itamar Ichner, Turkey disqualifies Ambassador Toledano, Yediot Ahronot,
October 1, 1997; Itamar Ichner, The Turks opposed and Toledano will
not be the Ambassador in Ankara, Yediot Ahronot, October 13, 1997.
69. Yaacov Achimeir, Maariv, October 13, 1997.
70. Yitzchak Shur, Yad Vashem Banned a Documentary Film that Deals with
the Question of the Uniqueness of the Holocaust, Jerusalem Newspaper,
April 28, 1995.
281
71. Michael Sepharad, The Six Million (This time not including the retarded, the handicapped and the Gypsies), Kol Hair, August 16, 1996.
72. Michal Peleg, Shrine of National Remembrance, Haaretz Supplement,
June 25, 1993.
73. See among others R. J. Rummel, The Nazi Genocide State, in Encyclopedia of Genocide (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO 1999), pp. 437-440.
74. Regarding the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum see Edward T. Linenthal,
1995, op. cit.
75. Haggai Erlich, The 1919 Generation, the War and the Shaping of the
Middle East, Zmanim, Vol. 17, No. 65, Winter 1988/9, p. 86.
76. Noam Chomsky, Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature
and the Social Order (Boston: South End Press, 1996), p. 62.
77. It should be mentioned that Chomsky wrote a preface to a book of the
French denier of the Holocaust, Robert Faurisson, Treatise in Defense
Against Those Who Accuse Me of Falsifying History. Chomsky defended
Faurissons right to free speech. Even though I respect Chomskys struggle
for human rights and his openness of mind in defense of free speech, I
can not accept his refusal to perceive any danger in denial discourse.
78. Chomsky, p. 61.
79. Ibid.
10
Conclusions
Have you murdered and also taken possession?
Kings I 21:19
283
284
nians, while subsequent Turkish governments have taken their possessions. And more than this, there is no Elijah who promises to confront
Turkey, not even for denying it.
What the case of the Armenian Genocide demonstrates iscontrary to the biblical storythat justice is not done, the evildoer is
not punished. Furthermore, the perpetrators can succeed in their
constant denial of the crimes they committed. At the beginning perhaps the denial is accepted, not because people or states believe the
perpetrators, but because of their pragmatic interests. Later, the
murderers or their successors try to confuse future generations so
that they will not know anything about the crime, hoping that it will
then be forgotten.
Many observers estimate, in the case of the Armenians, that one act
could radically change the long-standing denial of their Genocide: recognition of the Genocide by the United States or Israel. These are the
pivotal countries that could bring about a Turkish recognition of the
Genocide. There is a connection or even interdependence between the
decision of the two states. If one of them recognized the Genocide,
sooner or later the second would do the same.
There is no doubt that morally speaking, Israel should be the first.
Sadly, however, taking a realistic view of Israeli society and policy, this
is not likely to happen in the near future. The political establishment of
Israel, from the left wing as well as from the right wing, with a few
exceptions, has decided to develop relations between Turkey and Israel. It was a geopolitical decision and a strategy influenced by political and military interests that were sometimes represented as vital Jewish interests and later on as vital Israeli interests.
The political arena has its own logic and its own morality. One
can understand the political, military, and economic interests of a state
and the simple, banal, political considerations and calculations that are
common in politicsbusiness as usual we used to say Regarding
its complicated situation and sometimes the struggle for its very existence, Israel has the right to behave politicallyaccording to its political interestseven more than most countries. In my opinion, this was
truer in the past than it is today. Israel is strong and can assure its own
security. And indeed, not all Israeli politicians have behaved like business as usual. Some of them in the 1990s and in 2000 criticized the
attitude of the state and recognized the Armenian Genocide publicly,
even when they were members of the government.
Conclusions
285
The question is raised as to whether Israel has crossed a moral boundary by using the memory of the Armenian Genocideby its non-recognition and by contributing to the process of denialas merchandise
with which to bargain in its relations with Turkey.
Everyone would agree that Israel has no right to bargain with the
memory of the Holocaust. But, even more, it has no rightby no means,
in any circumstances, and much less so than any other countryto
bargain with the memory of another victim group. And yet Israel did
just that with the Armenian Genocide. The injustice on the side of Israel is even greater than that of other countries. Other states are passive
or indifferent to the process of denial; some are even active in the struggle
against denial and were ready to pay the price for their decision, which
was based mostly on moral grounds. Over the years, Israel has turned
from being a passive denier to being an active denier. Israel is contributing to the process of genocide denial and by doing so, it also betrays the
memory and the legacy of the Holocaust, at least from my point of view.
Israel committed the original sin when it surrendered to Turkish
pressure at the start of their relations. Israel should have explained to
Turkey that the memory of a genocide would not be negotiable merchandise in the relations between the two countries. Because Israel is a
country born out of the Holocaust, Turkey does not have the right to ask
or force Israel to speak out about genocide.
In my view, Turkey would have accepted this stand by Israel because
it was in its interest to develop its relations with Israel. After Israel
surrendered on this point the first time, that surrender became a precedent.
When the political establishment crosses the moral boundary, other
spheres in society have to raise their voices. The legacy and the moral
of the Holocaust could have been a significant voice in this regard,
but it has not come to pass. Israel has chosen the particular rather than
the universal moral of the Holocaust. The legacy of the Holocaust, as
represented by Holocaust institutions in Israel are, no doubt, the Zionist-Jewish lessons.
The mandate of Yad Vashem is to deal only with the Jewish Holocaust. The concept of the uniqueness of the Holocaust, which is a legitimate historical concept, was banalized in the political arena and by
the general public, and sometimes used inappropriately. In the same
manner, the Holocaust was used inappropriately by Israelis, and by
Arabs, in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
286
Conclusions
287
288
Conclusions
289
One of the formative influences on historical memory, and ultimately the historical consciousness of a society, is the question of
what society can and wishes to know about historical occurrences,
what society wants to remember, and what it chooses to remember.
In Israeli society, there are many people who would protest against
some genocides, but prefer not to know anything about the genocides of the Armenians or the Roma.
In the Israeli establishment there are people who do not want the
young Israeli to deal with any genocide apart from the Jewish Ho-
290
locaust, even though many will not readily admit to it. They give
many explanations, reasons, and alleged reasons to it. The establishment wants to avoid questions; sometimes they even want to avoid
real thinking and reflection about difficult and complicated issues.
In 1993, at the end of The Banality of Indifference, I wrote:
Israeli society may be at the beginning of a new stage in defining its identity and shaping its historical consciousness and relationship to the Holocaust. The Holocaust has been an important, meaningful, and central component in the creation of a Jewish-Israeli identity in the formative stages of
Israels society, which were also years of struggle and war. In Israels formative stages and during the period when its existence was not officially
recognized by many nations, the Holocaust and the states wars were central components in Israeli identity. Nurturing consciousness and remembrance of the Holocaust played an important function at the time. We witness today two simultaneous processes: the march on the path of peace,
which we have, one hopes, initiated, and the entry of Israeli society into a
stage of collective maturity. While these are separate processes, they are
delicately intertwined. They may bring about deep and far reaching changes
in our private and public identity.4
Conclusions
291
292
Conclusions
293
whole of humanity. It is probably the greatest moral failure mankind has ever known. Nevertheless, we still have to continue to
struggle against the denial of the Holocaust. The State of Israel continues to struggle against Holocaust denial on one hand, but participates in the denial of another genocide on the other. This most
likely will damage the struggle against Holocaust denial in the future. One might view this attitude as a moral failure. We have to
remember that moral claims can have influence only if they are
consistent.
As I said earlier, in my view Israelis are held to a higher standard
than other nations on moral issues because we are, generally speaking,
survivors of the Holocaust and because of the Jewish legacy and
heritage. Not all Israelis agree with this point of view. However, we
Israeli-Jews have failed to keep higher moral standards (also regarding our attitude towards acts of genocide like those in Rwanda
and the former Yugoslavia that are dealt with in this book) and this
failure can be, in the long term, fatal for Israel. Unfortunately, people
in Europe and elsewhere want to be rid of their feelings of guilt
toward the Jewish people because of the Holocaust (and the long
history of Christian anti-Semitism). They want to change the image
of the Jew from being a victim and martyr to a victimizer and perpetrator. Without doubt, Israelis share responsibility for this phenomenon, but maybe the worlds recognition of the Holocaust and
its late discovery does not mean that the real meaning and significance of the Holocaust was really absorbed and internalized by
all the elements of Western societies.
Because no previous study has dealt with these or similar issues, an
original methodology was employed to analyze the subject with regard
to four domains: the political, the educational, the media, and the academic. This methodology has to be developed and can be applied to
other states and to other genocides as well. Every society and state has
to analyze its attitudes to past and present acts of genocide, and to the
phenomenon of denial. In criticizing Israel we have to remember that
most countries behave in the same or similar ways. As mentioned, the
attitudes and the behavior of the third party are crucial within the
occurence of acts of genocide on the one hand, and on the other in their
denial, and in the struggle to prevent them in the future. Perhaps, a new
field in genocide studies has to be created.
*
294
More has been written about the Holocaust than any other event
in the history of humanity. George Santayana is quoted as saying
that those who forget the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Nevertheless, there are those who claim that
the books by Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, which have had so great
an impact, did not save the life of a single human being in the many
terrible genocides committed after the Holocaust.
Both claims contain a certain truth. I believe it is our responsibility to
know, and let others know, what people and nations can do to one another
and, unfortunately, what they have done to each other in the past. The struggle
for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide relates to events that occurred almost ninety years ago, but deals with our present and future.
In 1947 Albert Camus published The Plague (La Peste), a novel that
is in many regards an allegory of our inhumanity during World War
IIthe Nazis, fascism, and their evil.
The hero of the novel wrote the chronicle of the epidemic of the
plague in the city of Oran in Algeria in 194[in the original]:
Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one
of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those
plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage
done them might endure
Nonetheless, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a
final victory. It could be only the record of what had to be done, and what
assuredly would have to be done again in the never-ending fight against
terror and its relentless onslaughts
And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town,
Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those
jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the
plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for
years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would
come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it roused up its rats
again and sent them forth to die in a happy city.7
We have to remember, as Camus tells us, that the fight against evil,
terror, and genocide is a never-ending fight, and that we have to be
consistent in this ongoing struggle, because plague bacillus never dies
or disappears for good.
About fifty years later, in 1995, Jos Saramago published his powerful bookalso a metaphor of our civilization in the twentieth century
Blindness. This is the story of a society whose members have been
Conclusions
295
blinded mysteriously. Among them a single woman retains her eyesight and chooses to join her blind husband in an isolation camp created for the blind by the government. The following is a conversation
between the seeing woman and a blind woman who finally realizes that
the other woman is not blind. Sometimes, purposely, it is difficult to
realize whether the seeing or the blind woman is speaking:8
Today it is my responsibility, not tomorrow if I should turn blind. What do
you mean by responsibility? The responsibility of having my eyesight when
others have lost theirs. You cannot hope to guide or provide food for all the
blind people in the world, I ought to, but you cannot, I shall do whatever I
can to help.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
About Israeli intellectuals, see, among others, Anita Shapira, The Zionist Labor Movement and the Hebrew University, Judaism: A Quarterly
Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 45, 2 (1996), pp. 183-198; Michael
Keren, Israels Intellectuals and Political Independence, Studies in Zionism 9, 2 (1998), pp. 197-208; Baruch Kimmerling, Sociology, Ideology and Nation-Building: The Palestinians and Their Meaning in Israeli
Sociology, American Sociological Review 57, 4 (1992), pp. 446-460;
Baruch Kimmerman, Academic History Caught in Cross-Fire: The Case
of Israeli-Jewish Historiography, History and Memory 7, 1 (1995), pp.
41-66; Yaron Ezrahi, Changing Political Functions of Science in the
Modern Liberal-Democratic State, in Studies in the Sociology of Culture
Past and Present (1988); Nissan Oren (ed.), Intellectuals in Politics (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984); George L. Mosse, Central European Intellectuals in Palestine, Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and
Thought 45, 2 (1996), pp. 134-142; Alek D. Epstein, Defending Democracy and Civil Rights in the Era of State-Building: The Jerusalem Academic Community from the Declaration of Independence to the Lebanon
Campaign, Jewish Political Studies Review 13,1-2 (2001), pp. 63-87. See
also Shlomo Sand, Intellectuals: Truth and Power from the Dreyfus Affair
to the Gulf War (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000). Sand especially analyzes the
role of intellectuals in French society in comparison to their role in Israeli
society.
Julian Benda, La trahison des clercs (Paris: Grasset, 1927).
Paul Nizan, Le chiens de garde (Paris: Maspero, 1960).
Auron, 2001, pp. 365-366.
Yehuda Elkana, In Praise of Forgetting, Haaretz, March 2, 1988.
Sybil Milton, Gypsies and the Holocaust, The History Teacher Vol. 24,
No. 4, August 1991, p. 377.
Albert Camus, The Plague (Middlesex: Penguin Book, 1960), pp. 251252.
296
8.
Appendix A
The Speech Made by Yossi Sarid, Minister of
Education of Israel, at the Armenian Memorial Gathering,
the Morning of April 24, 2000
I join you, members of the Armenian community, on your Memorial
Day, as you mark the eighty-fifth anniversary of your genocide. I am
here, with you, as a human being, as a Jew, as an Israeli, and as education minister of the State of Israel.
Every year, Armenians gather in Israel and all over the world to remember and to remind the world of the terrible disaster that befell your
people at the beginning of the last century.
For many years, too many years, you were alone on your Memorial
Day. I am aware of the special significance of my presence here today
along with other Israelis. Today perhaps for the first time you are less alone.
The Armenian Memorial Day should be a day of reflection and introspection for all of us, a day of soul-searching. On this day, we as
Jews, victims of the Shoah, should examine our relationship to the pain
of others.
The massacre, which was carried out by the Turks against the Armenians in 1915 and 1916, was one of the most horrible acts to occur in
modern times.
The Jewish ambassador of America to Turkey in those days, Henry
Morgenthau, described the massacre as the greatest crime in modern
history. Morgenthau did not predict what was in store later in the twentieth century for the Jews, the Shoah, the most terrible [crime] of all
[which] is still in front of our eyes.
The person who was most shocked and shocked many people was
the Prague-born Jewish author, Franz Werfel, with his masterpiece, The
Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The idea for writing the book was born in
297
298
Appendix A
299
motto is Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto. As Jews our exile
from our ancestral home and our centuries of suffering in all parts of the
globe have made us, I would fain say, specialists in martyrdom; our humanitarian feelings have been refined to an incomparable degree, so much
so that the sufferings of other peopleeven alien to us in blood and remote
from us in distancecannot but strike the deeper chords of our soul and
weave between us and our fellow-sufferers that deep bond of sympathy
which one might call the solidarity of sorrow. And among all those who
suffer around us, is there is people whose record of martyrdom is more
akin to ours than that of the Armenians? As Zionists we have a peculiar
question of principle. Zionism being in its essence nothing else than the
Jewish expression of the demand for national justice, it is natural and logical for us to be deeply interested in the struggle for emancipation of any
other living nation... We are convinced that the future peace and happiness
of that part of the worldthe Middle Eastof which our own national
homeland, Palestine, is only a section, will be best assured when all welldefined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that
can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the
peace. In our opinion a free and happy Armenia, a free and happy Arabia,
and a free and happy Jewish Palestine, are the three pillars on which will
rest the future peace and welfare of the Middle East.
This is what the secretary of Chaim Weizmann wrote more than eighty
years ago; things that are important and just, that stress the value of
human life, no matter for whomJew, Arab, Armenian, Gypsy, Bosnian
Albanian, or Rwandanand I want this lofty message to be imparted
to all our students in our school history curriculum; a new program that
is now in the process of being written.
I would like to see a central chapter on genocide, on this huge and
inhuman atrocity. The Armenian Genocide should occupy a prominent
place in this program, which does justice to the national and personal
memory of every one of you, to the memory of all the members of your
nation. This is our obligation to you; this is our obligation to ourselves.
Now we are on the eve of our Feast. It is the Feast of our freedom
and we emerge from slavery to redemption. From slavery to freedom.
This is what we wish to every nation and also to the Armenian people:
Freedom and RedemptionRedemption and Freedom.
Appendix B
The Armenian Genocide Resolution Unanimously Passed by the
Association of Genocide Scholars (AGS) of North America*
The Armenian Genocide Resolution was unanimously passed at the
Association of Genocide Scholars conference in Montreal on June 13,
1997.
Resolution
That this assembly of the Association of Genocide Scholars in its conference held in Montreal, June 11-13, 1997, reaffirms that the mass murder of
over a million Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which
conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It further condemns the denial of the
Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government and its official and unofficial agents and supporters.
Appendix C
Statement by Concerned Scholars and Writers, April 24, 1998
To Honor the 50th Anniversary of the U.N. Genocide Convention
We Commemorate the
Armenian Genocide of 1915
and Condemn the Turkish Governments
Denial of this Crime Against Humanity
On April 24, 1915, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic, premeditated genocide of the Armenian
peoplean unarmed Christian minority living under Turkish rule. More
than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. Another million fled into
permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its
homeland of 2,500 years.
The Armenian Genocide was the most dramatic human rights issue
of the time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the U.S.
The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by Ottoman courtmartial records, by hundreds of thousands of documents in the archives of
the United States and nations around the world, by eyewitness reports of
missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by eight
decades of historical scholarship.
After 83 years the Turkish government continues to deny the genocide of the Armenians by blaming the victims and undermining historical fact with false rhetoric. Books about the genocide are banned in
Turkey. The words Armenian and Greek are nonexistent in Turkish
descriptions of ancient or Christian artifacts and monuments in Turkey.
Turkeys efforts to sanitize its history now include the funding of chairs
in Turkish studieswith strings attachedat American universities.
303
304
When Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1944 he cited the 1915
annihilation of the Armenians as a seminal example of genocide.
The European Parliament, the Association of Genocide Scholars, the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem), and the Institute for the
Study of Genocide (NYC) have reaffirmed the extermination of the Armenians by the Turkish government as genocide by the definition of the 1948
United Nations Genocide Convention.
Appendix C
305
Peter Balakian
Writer; Professor of English, Colgate University
Mary Catherine Bateson
Clarence J. Robinson Professor in English & Anthropology, George
Mason University
Yehuda Bauer
Professor of Holocaust Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Robert N. Bellah
Elliott Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Norman Birnbaum
University Professor, Georgetown University
Peter Brooks
Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University
Robert McAfee Brown
Professor of Theology and Ethics Emeritus, Pacific School of Religion
Christopher Browning
Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran University
Frank Chalk
Professor of History, Concordia University
Israel W. Charny
Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
Ward Churchill
Associate Professor of American Indian Studies, University of
Colorado
Rev. William Sloane Coffin
Pastor Emeritus, Riverside Church, NYC
Vahakn Dadrian
Director, Genocide Study Project, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation
David Brion Davis
Sterline Professor of History, Yale University
306
Appendix C
307
Vigen Guroian
Professor of Theology and Ethics, Loyola College
Geoffrey Hartman
Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University
Seamus Hearney
Harvard University; Nobel Laureate for Literature
Judith Herman
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Raul Hilberg
Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Vermont
Richard G. Hovannisian
Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, UCLA
Kurt Jonahsson
Professor of Sociology, Concordia University
Alfred Kazin
Writer, Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus, CUNY Graduate
Center
Steven Kepnes
Director of Jewish Studies, Professor of Religion, Colgate University
Ben Kiernan
Professor of History, Yale University
Robert Jay Lifton
Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, John Jay
College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate School of the City
University of New York
Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Emory
University
Norman Mailer
Writer
Eric Markusen
Professor of Sociology, Southwest State University, Minnesota
308
Robert Melson
Professor of Political Science, Purdue University
Saul Medlovitz
Dag Hammarskjold Professor of Law, Rutgers University
W.S. Merwin
Writer
Arthur Miller
Writer
Henry Morgenthau III
Writer
George L. Mosse
Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Hebrew
University, Jerusalem
Joyce Carol Oates
Writer
Grace Paley
Writer
Harold Pinter
Writer
Robert A. Pois
Professor of History, University of Colorado
Francis B. Randall
Professor of History, Sarah Lawrence College
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
Sidney Hellman Professor of European History, University of
California, Berkeley
Leo P. Ribuffo
Professor of History, George Washington University
David Riesman
Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science, Harvard University
Appendix C
309
Nathan A. Scott
William R. Kenan Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, University of Virginia
Christopher Simpson
Professor of Communications, American University
Roger Smith
Professor of Government, College of William & Mary
Susan Sontag
Writer
Wloe Soyinka
Nobel Laureate, Woodruff Professor of the Arts, Emory University
Max L. Stackhouse
Stephen Colwell Professor of Christian Ethics, Princeton Theological
Seminary
Charles B. Strozier
Professor of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The
Graduate Center, City University of New York
Rose Styron
Writer; former Chair, Freedom to Write Committee, PEN American
Center
William Styron
Writer
Ronald Suny
Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
Raymond Tanter
Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan
D.M. Thomas
Writer
John Updike
Writer
Kurt Vonnegut
Writer
310
Derek Walcott
Professor of English, Boston University; Nobel Laureate for Literature
Cornel West
Professor of Philosophy & Religion, and Afro-American Studies,
Harvard University
Howard Zinn
Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University
This statement was published again in April 1999 to honor the 51st
Anniversary of the United Nations Genocide Convention.
Appendix D
126 Holocaust Scholars Affirm the Incontestable
Fact of the Armenian Genocide and Urge Western
Democracies to Officially Recognize It
At the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, convening at St. Joseph University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 3-7, 2000, one hundred twenty-six Holocaust scholars, holders of Academic Chairs and Directors of Holocaust
Research and Studies Centers, participants in the conference, signed a
statement affirming that the World War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable historical fact and accordingly urge the governments of
Western Democracies to recognize it as such. The petitioners, among
whom is Nobel Laureate for Peace Elie Wiesel, who was the keynote
speaker at the conference, also asked the Western Democracies to urge
the Government and Parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms with
a dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the Armenian Genocide. This would provide an invaluable impetus to the process of the democratization of Turkey.
Below is a partial list of the signatories:
Prof. Yehuda Bauer
Distinguished Professor, Hebrew University, Director, The International Institute of Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Prof. Israel Charny
Director, Institute of the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem, Professor of Hebrew University, Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of
Genocide
311
312
Appendix D
313
314
William L. Shulman
President, Association of Holocaust Organizations, City University
of New York
Prof. Samuel Totten
The University of Arkansas, Assoc. Editor of The Encyclopedia of
Genocide
Prof. Elie Wiesel
Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Boston University,
Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Nobel Laureate for Peace
I hereby declare that the originals of these
126 signatures are on file in my office.
All affiliations supplied are for identification purposes only.
Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies,
University of Minnesota
Paid for by Descendants of Survivors of the
Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust
Appendix E
Statement of Scholars, Rabbis, Teachers, Community Leaders,
and Students of Jewish Heritage
In August 2001, a group of highly distinguished Jewish scholars,
both American and Israeli, released a statement affirming the Armenian Genocide and demonstrating their friendship with the Armenian
people:
We, the undersigned, are scholars, rabbis, teachers, community leaders, and students of Jewish heritage. As Jews, we share many similarities with the Armenian people. We were both victims of genocide during
the twentieth-century and have survived despite those who would deny us
our right to exist. On this year, 2001, which marks the 1700th anniversary
of Armenias adoption of Christianity, we as Jews salute our Armenian
friends and their contributions to Western society and culture.
(Please Note: Affiliations are for Identification Purposes Only)
SIGNATORIES:
Professor David R. Blumenthal, Rabbi
Jay and Leslie Cohen Professor of Judaic Studies
Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Leon Botstein
President, Bard College
Prof. Israel W. Charny
Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide
Executive Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
315
316
Appendix E
317
318
Appendix E
319
320
Bibliography
Books
Akam, Taner. Dialogue Across an International Divide: Essays Towards a
Turkish-Armenian Dialogue. Cambridge, MA and Toronto: The Zoryan
Institute, 2001.
Alon, Amos. Looking Back in Consternation. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1998.
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Revised and enlarged edition. New
York: Viking Press, 1964.
Auron, Yair. Awareness of World SufferingGenocide in the 20th Century.
Experimental Edition. Tel Aviv: Kibbutzim College of Education,
1994.
______. The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide.
New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000.
______. Les Juifs dExtrme Gauche en Mai 68Une Gnration
Rvolutionnaire Marqu par la Shoa. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998.
______. The Pain of Knowing: Reflections on the Teaching of the Holocaust
and Genocide. Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 2002.
Azarya, Victor. The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. Berkeley, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1984.
Bardakjian, K. B. Hitler and the Armenian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: The
Zoryan Institute, 1985.
Bauer, Yehuda. Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001.
Bek, Aziz. Intelligence and Espionage in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine during the World War (1913-1918). Translation, introduction, and notes by
Eliezer Tauber. Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University and Maarachot, 1991.
Benda, Julian La trahison des clercs. Paris: Grasset, 1927.
Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the
Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.
Camus, Albert. The Plague. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1960.
Caspi, Dan, ed. Communication and Democracy in Israel. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz
Hammeuchad Publishing House, 1997.
321
322
Caspi, Dan and Yechiel Limor. The Mediators: The Mass Media in Israel 19481990. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992.
Chaumont, Jean Michel. La concurrence des victimsgnocide, identit, reconnaissance. Paris: La Dcoverte, 1997.
Chomsky, Noam. Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and
the Social Order. Boston: South End Press, 1996.
Cohen, Stanley. States of DenialKnowing about Atrocities and Suffering.
Cambridge: Polity, 2001.
Coser, Lewis. Men and Ideas: A Sociologists View. New York: Free Press,
1965.
Dadrian, Vahakn N. The History of the Armenian GenocideEthnic Conflict
from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence: Berghahn Books,
1995.
______. Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A
Case Study in Distortion and Falsification. Cambridge, MA and Toronto:
The Zoryan Institute, 1999.
Dallin, Alexander. German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945: A Study in Occupation
Policies. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1981 (second edition).
De Bounbil, P. The Death of Biafra. Tel Aviv: Othpaz, 1969.
Des Forges, Alison. Leave None to Tell the StoryGenocide in Rwanda. New
York: Human Rights Watch, 1999.
Diamond, Jared. The Third Chimpanzee. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992.
Firer, Ruth. Agents of the Lesson. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1989.
Funkenstein, Amos and Adin Steinsaltz. Sociology of Ignorance. Tel Aviv:
The Broadcast University, Ministry of Defence, 1987.
Halbwachs, Maurice. Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
Herman, Simon. Jewish Identity: A Social Psychological Perspective. Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage, 1977.
Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Lewis, Herman Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1992.
Liebman, Charles and Eliezer Don-Yehiya. Civil Religion in Israel. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983.
Liel, Alon. Turkey in the Middle East: Oil, Islam, Politics. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz
Hameuchad, 1994.
______. Turkey: Military, Islam and Politics 1970-2000. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz
Hameuchad, 1999.
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of
Genocide. Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
Linenthal, Edward T. Preserving Memory. New York: Viking Press, 1995.
Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory. New York: Free Press, 1993.
Bibliography
323
324
Bibliography
325
Charny, Israel W. and Daphna Fromer. Denying the Armenian Genocide: Patterns of Thinking as Defence-Mechanism. Patterns of Prejudice 32, No 1
(1998): 39-49.
Dadrian, Vahakn N. Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in Turkish
Sources. In Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, vol. 2, edited by
Israel W. Charny. New York: Facts On File, 1991, pp. 86-138.
______. The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of
Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide. International Journal
of Middle East Studies 18, No. 3 (1986): 311-360.
______. Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian Genocide. In The
Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, edited by Richard
Hovannisian. New York: St. Marins Press, 1992, pp. 280-310.
DAllaire, Romeo A. The End of Innocence: Rwanda 1994. In Hard Choices:
Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, edited by Jonathan Moore.
Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998, pp. 71-86.
Epstein, Alek D. Defending Democracy and Civil Rights in the Era of StateBuilding: The Jerusalem Academic Community from the Declaration of
Independence to the Lebanon Campaign. Jewish Political Studies Review
13, 1-2 (2001): 63-87.
Ezrahi, Yaron. Changing Political Functions of Science in the Modern Liberal-Democratic State. In Studies in Sociology of Culture Past and Present
7(1988): 181-202.
Farago, Uri. Jewish Identity of Israeli Youth, 1965-1985. Yahadut Zemanenu
5 (1989): 259-85.
Feuer, Lewis. What Is an Intellectual? In The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals: Theory, Method and Case Study, edited by Alexander Gello. Beverly
Hills: Sage, 1976.
Foss, Clive. The Turkish View of Armenian History: A Vanishing Nation. In
The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, edited by Richard
Hovannisian. New York: St. Marins Press, 1992, pp. 250-279.
Guroian, Vigen. The Politics and Morality of Genocide. In The Armenian
Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, edited by Richard Hovannisian. New
York: St. Marins Press, 1992, pp. 311-339.
Gur-Zeev, Illan. The Morality of Acknowledging/Not Acknowledging the
Others Holocaust/Genocide. Journal of Moral Education 27, No. 2
(1998): 169-178.
Handelman, Don and Elihu Katz. State Ceremonies of Israel: Remembrance
Day and Independence Day. In Models and Mirrors: Toward an Anthropology of Public Events, edited by Don Handelman. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992, pp. 191-223.
Housepian Dobkin, Marjorie. What Genocide? What Holocaust? News from
Turkey, 1915-1923: A Case Study. In The Armenian Genocide in Perspec-
326
Bibliography
327
Smith Roger W. The Armenian Genocide: Memory, Politics, and the Future.
In The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, edited by Richard G.
Hovannisian. New York: St. Martins Press, 1992, pp. 1-20.
______. Denial of the Armenian Genocide. In Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, Volume 2, edited by Israel W. Charny. New York: Facts On
File, 1991, pp. 63-85.
______. Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and Its Implications.
Armenian Review 42, No. 1 (Spring 1989): 1-38.
Smith, Roger W., Eric Markusen and Robert Jay Lifton. Professional Ethics
and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9, No. 1 (1995): 1-22.
Ternon, Yves. Freedom and Responsibility of the Historian. In Remembrance
and Denial, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998, pp. 237-248.
______. La qualit de la prevueA propos des documents Andonian et la
petite phrase dHitler. In Lactualit du Gnocide des Armniens. Paris:
Edipol, 1999, pp. 135-142.
Tolkowsky, Shmuel. The Armenian Question from the Zionist Point of View.
Ararat No. 57 (April 1918): 346-347
Wiesenthal, Simon. Why is it Important to Learn about the Holocaust and the
Genocides of All People? In Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by Israel
W. Charny. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999, p. lix (Foreword).
Index
Arens, Moshe, 110, 233
Arlen, Michael, 200, 304
Armenia/Armenians
Attitudes to Nazi Germany, 229, 234,
238, 239, 240, 242, 257, 260-265,
268, 269, 270, 272
Zionists, links with, 1, 2, 15, 20, 20n
Armenian Case Committee in Jerusalem,
167, 181n, 182n, 197, 207, 240
Armenian Diaspora, 11, 42, 101, 238,
263
Assistance to Jewish Pogrom Victims, 257
Armenian Genocide
American Jews, 105, 107, 114
Bystander Responses, 2, 12
Denial of, 4-13, 18, 42, 45-57, 58n,
59n, 61, 67, 108, 110, 114, 119,
124, 126, 127, 128, 155-159, 169,
204, 209, 212, 216, 228, 229, 240245, 256, 267, 268, 273-275, 284286
Documentation of, 279n
Forgotten Genocide, 9, 12, 68, 284
Israel Media and (see Media)
Responsibility for, 46, 50, 56, 66, 69,
130, 151, 153, 222, 238, 295
Armenian History, 41, 133n, 157, 193
Armenian Journey, An, 188, 201, 202,
208, 212
Armenian Nationalism, 227, 261
Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, 68, 69,
162, 173, 186, 205, 233
Armenian Refugees, 67, 68
Arush Agreements, 94
Association of Genocide Scholars, 242,
249
Association of Turkish Immigrants in
Israel, 204
Auron, Yair, 34, 37, 126, 156, 157, 158,
170, 185, 250, 215
329
330
Index
Dadrian, Vahakn N., 155, 239, 254, 257,
259, 305
Dahrwshe, Abdul Wahab, 87
Dalai Lama, 78, 81-84
DAllaire, Romeo, 6, 21n
Dallin, Alexander, 262-263
Darwish, Mahamoud, 193, 163
Dashefsky, Arnold, 316
Davar, 206, 208, 211, 223
Davar Sheni, 160
Davidson, Shamai, 218
Davis, Brion David, 305
Davis, Miriam, 202, 207
Dayan, Arye, 266
Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee
(Israeli Knesset), 109, 121, 185, 188
Debates about Rwanda, 97
Debates about Yugoslavia, 87, 88, 90
Debates about Biafra, 81
Denial, x, xi, xiv, 4-13, 18, 19, 42, 4557, 131, 132, 170, 204, 209, 230,
232, 235, 265, 293
Active, 57, 62, 124, 130
Behavior of, 4, 45, 50, 124
Intensity of, 51, 269
of Genocide, 4-13, 45-57, 58n,
127, 229
of Genocide compared to Holocaust denial, XIV, 10, 48, 52,
61, 114, 126, 155-159, 169,
205, 209, 212
of Genocides of Indigenous
people, 48, 275
of the Genocide of Native Americans, 48, 275
Passive, 57
Psychology of, xi, 58n, 59n, 255
Derian, James Der, 306
Dershowitz, Alan, 220
Diamond, Jared, 49-50
Dobkin, Marjorie Housepian, 242, 306
Doctors Without Borders, 86
Dole, Robert, 103, 104
Dothan, Aaron, 236
Dreyfus Affair, 215
Dror, Zvika, 178-179
East Timor, 48, 275
Eban, Abba, 39
Ecevit, Bulent, 131, 196
Education
of Genocide in Israel, 150-178, 185-197
331
332
107,
158,
185,
208,
243-
Habyalimana, Juvenal, 94
Hague, 75, 85, 93
Haifa, 68, 236
Hamer, Zevulun, 203
Harbord, James G., 8
Hartman, Geoffrey, 307
Hartunian, Vartan, 178
Hattis, Sheila, 108
Hausner, Gideon, 217
Hearney, Seamus, 307
Hebrew, xii, 2, 3, 27, 30, 103, 104, 105,
114, 145, 146, 191, 227, 236, 239,
246, 290
Heinsohn, Gunner, 301
Herman, Judith Lewis, 11, 12, 307
Herman, Simon, 32
Hertzberg, Arthur, 219
Herzel, Theodor, 30
Heschel, Susannah, 317
Hilberg, Raul, 307
Hillgruber, Andrew, 247
Hintlian, George, 241, 248, 266, 278n
Hiroshima, 50
Hirsch, Herbert, 312
Hirshzon, Avraham, 119
Historians Debate, xii, 45, 54, 101, 127,
155, 160, 163, 172-173, 179, 215,
217, 231, 233-234, 242-244, 247,
249-260, 273, 289
Historical Revisionism, 16, 48, 58n, 228,
229
Hitler, Adolf, 39, 92, 131, 135n, 145,
257, 262-263, 271, 290
Armenian Genocide and, 131,
135n, 257, 262-263, 271
Hobbes, Thomas, 71
Holocaust
Denial of, x, xi, 48, 52, 54, 114, 126,
155-159, 169, 185, 190, 193, 203,
209, 212, 235, 247, 250, 251, 269,
275, 293
Holocaust rebirth, ideology of, 28, 29,
30, 40
Lessons of, xii, xiii, 20, 25, 26, 27,
28, 29, 77, 105, 147, 153, 180,
193, 232, 271, 286, 290, 294
Uniqueness, 2, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,
21n, 40, 49, 61, 107, 130, 137,
138, 141, 167, 168, 171, 172,
180, 189, 190, 203, 205, 208,
222, 223, 243, 250, 269, 280,
285, 291
Index
Holocaust Memorial Day, 28-30, 73,
106-107, 125, 132, 150, 174-177,
183n, 218
Horowitz, Ariel, 265
Horowitz, Irving Louis, 312
Horowitz, Nitzan, 114
Hovannisian, Richard G., 54-56, 58n,
277n, 307
Howard, Rhoda, 301
Hutu, 93-97, 100n
Ibo people, 80-81, 99n
Identity
Armenian, 41, 207, 208
Israeli, 36, 41, 144, 174, 177, 290
Jewish, xii, xiii, 23, 27, 33, 36, 38,
39, 41, 137, 143, 147, 152, 180,
239
Jewish-Israeli, xi, xii, 17, 23, 24-25,
30, 31, 36, 37, 290
Ilkin, Baki, 256, 279n
International Criminal Court (ICC), 7477
International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia, 85, 93
Iran, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 204
Iraq, 64, 76
Irving, David, 193
Israel
Armenians in, 68-69
Media coverage of the Armenian
Genocide (see Media)
School curriculum and Armenian
Genocide, 118, 168, 172, 173,
179, 181n, 185-186, 190, 192n,
210, 254, 265
Turkish Ambassador to, 118-119,
209, 214n, 220, 256-258, 279n,
280n
War of Independence, 33, 291
Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA),
173, 199-207, 208, 210, 212a, 214n,
268
Israeli Foreign Ministry, 39, 76, 77-79,
81, 87-88, 90-91, 95, 96, 98n, 99n,
100n, 109-111, 118-122, 123-125,
126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133n,
135n, 151, 157, 172, 185, 187, 194,
195, 200, 204, 209, 214n, 218-221,
224, 226, 265-268, 272
Israeli Law on Genocide, 72-74
Italy, 102, 207
333
334
Kundera, Milan, 10
Kuper, Leo, 80, 99n
Kurds, 64, 248
Kushnir, Bernard, 86
Lantos, Tom, 111, 112
Lapid, Yosef (Tommy), 203, 204
Le Figaro, 101
Le Monde, 228, 229, 230, 235, 245, 277
Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 250
Lebanon, 39, 67, 201, 264, 295n
Lemkin, Raphael, 9, 21n, 41, 45, 46, 72,
257
Lerner, Michael, 317
Leven, Mark, 301
Levi, David, 195, 265
Levi, Primo, xiii, 4, 48, 58n, 137, 294
Lewis, Bernard, 215-216, 217, 226-236,
240-255, 264
Lewis, Jonathan Aric, 317
Libowitz, Richard, 312
Liebman, Yeshayahu (Charles), 35, 42n
Liel, Alon, 69n, 121, 187, 188, 221
Lifton, Robert Jay, 50, 52, 53, 159, 220,
236, 242, 258, 278n, 307, 317
Lipkin-Shahak, Amnon, 196
Lipstadt, Deborah, 53, 307, 317
Littell, Franklin H., 313
Littell, Marcia, 313
Livnat, Limor, 175, 176, 197
Lochamei Hagettaot, 178, 179, 184n
Locke, Hubert G., 313
Loftus, John, 318
Lowry, Heath, 52, 158, 170, 242, 248,
258, 279n
Lubrani, Uri, 233
Maariv, 103, 104, 108, 166, 172, 182,
192, 196, 206, 211, 266
Machiavelli, Nicolas, 71
Madrid Peace Conference, 63
Mailer, Norman, 307
Malta Trails, 191, 192
Mandel, Maud, 318
Manoogian, Alex, 178
Marcuse, Harold, 318
Margalit, Dan, 171
Markusen, Eric, 52, 53, 236, 258, 307, 317
Masada, 39, 43n
Mass murder, 19, 52, 109, 143, 168, 206,
246, 269
Maxwell, Robert, 226
Index
Nazi War Criminal, 4, 34, 72, 73, 126,
170, 265, 270, 271, 272
Nazis, xi, 3, 15, 17, 35, 39, 52, 54, 56,
72, 73, 88, 92, 95, 96, 106, 108, 126,
132, 138, 140, 141, 159, 175, 178,
179, 205, 229, 232, 234, 238, 239,
240, 242, 248, 252, 257, 260-265,
268, 269, 271, 272, 291, 294
Needle, Jack, 313
Neo-Nazi, 143, 251
Negation of Exile, 26
Netanyahu Benjamin, 110, 232
Never Again, xiii, 15, 77, 232, 250, 289
New York Times, 53, 197, 202, 216, 220,
221, 223, 227
Nigeria, 80, 81
Nizan, Paul, 228
Nobel Prize, 86, 111, 125, 197, 296
Nolte, Ernest, 247, 251
North America, 102, 138, 143
Novitz, Miriam, 179
Nuremberg, 4, 85, 257
International Military Tribunal, 74, 77
Nzhdeh, Garegin, 238, 261
Oates, Joyce Carol, 308
Oberschall, Anthony, 301
Ofer, Dalia, 144, 145, 181n
Orr, Ori, 91
Osherow, Jacqueline, 319
Oslo Agreements, 78, 291
Ottoman Empire, 4, 9, 21n, 58n, 69n, 108,
113, 129, 155, 157, 168, 171, 187,
205, 216, 228, 234-239, 253, 279n
Armenians and Jews, minority
status of, 228, 272
Discrimination against minorities,
272
Genocide of Armenians, 4, 46,
102, 103, 108, 165, 171, 197,
215, 227, 247, 255-260
Jews in, 236
Massacre of Armenians, 46, 105,
115, 157, 172
Oz, Amos, 233, 235
Pakistan, 76
Palestine (Eretz Israel), ix, xii, 1, 2, 3, 6,
68, 145, 155, 264, 280
Palestinians, xi, 38, 39, 69, 78, 82, 88,
115, 127, 131, 144, 163, 180, 191,
193, 290, 291, 292, 295n
335
336
Index
Steinsaltz, Adin, 50, 59n
Strozier, Charles B., 309
Styron, Rose, 309
Styron, William, 309
Suny, Ronald, 309
Susser, Asher, 233, 235, 244, 245, 278n
Swiss, 102, 103, 109
Syria, 37, 64, 66, 67, 76, 156, 204, 228,
264, 280n
Talaat Pasha Telegrams, 253, 254, 258,
259
Tanenbaum, Marc, 219
Tanter, Raymond, 170, 309
Tauber, Eliezer, 264, 280n
Tel Aviv
Mayor of, 231, 232, 233, 236, 240,
241, 245
Municipality, 231, 240, 272
Tel Aviv Magazine, 235, 236
Tennembaum, Shelly, 319
Ternon, Yves, 235, 236, 248, 258, 259,
261, 277n, 278n, 279n
Teutsch, David A., 319
Thal, Lennard R., 320
Third Party, 12, 49, 50, 71, 79, 91, 293
Thomas, D. M., 309
Tiananmen Square, 78
Tibet, 7, 13, 79, 81-84
Times Literary Supplement, 234, 243,
278n
Toledano, Ehud, 217, 265-267, 280n
Tolkowsky, Shmuel, 1, 20, 20n
Totten, Samuel, 99n, 314
Turkey/Turks
Foreign Minister, 63, 107, 121, 172,
209, 268
Political pressure on France, 122
Political pressure on Israel, 47, 56,
209
Political pressure on the U.S., 112
Threats to the Jews, 47, 56, 113
Threats to the U.S., 112
Turkish Daily News, 115, 117, 121, 123,
133n, 134n, 188, 195, 196
Turkish Republic, 46, 237, 238
Altitudes to Nazi Germany, 237-238
Tutsi, 93-94
Uganda, 94
Ukraine, 142, 271
Ukrainian Famine, 142
337
338
Zeevi, Rechavam, 95
Ziffer, Beni, 243
Zimmerman, Moshe, 167
Zinn, Howard, 310
Zionism, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
28, 31, 32, 37, 39-41, 53, 143, 144,
145, 155, 171, 175, 180, 236, 251,
252, 271, 291, 292
Armenian Genocide and, 1, 135n
Perspectives on the Armenian
Genocide, 1, 2, 257
Zionist Ideology, x, 26, 27, 28, 34, 37,
38, 39-41, 95, 143, 144, 145, 150,
171, 175, 176, 177, 180, 271, 291
Zionist Movement, xi, 1, 2, 25, 43n, 249
Zisman, Emmanuel, 119
Zmanim, 272
Zohary, Daniel, 159
Zola, Emile, 215
Zucker, Dedi, 87, 88
Zuckerman, Yitzhak, 179
Zwelling, Jeremy, 320