By the World Forgot: Realpolitik and the Armenian Genocide
By Nir Eisikovits

Commentary

In The National Interest
September 1, 2004

Between 1915 and 1916, through a campaign of slaughter and deportation,
the nationalist ‘Young Turk’ government of the Ottoman Empire
killed over 1 Million Armenians. To this day, Turkey refuses to
accept responsibility for this genocide, claiming that the number of
casualties was far smaller and that most had been killed in fighting
between the parties rather than in one-sided massacres. It seems
that Turkish genocide-deniers are now receiving assistance from an
unexpected source. In a recent article, the Israeli daily Haaretz
reported that several Jewish groups in Washington have been involved
in blocking attempts to procure Congressional recognition of the
atrocities.

This involvement was much more proactive last year than it is now, but,
to quote the article, “a central activist in a Jewish organization
involved in this matter clarified that if necessary, he would not
hesitate to again exert pressure to ensure the resolution is not
passed and the Turks remain satisfied.” Surprising? Not really. Israel
has systematically refrained from recognizing the extermination
of Armenians. Senior officials, including former foreign minister
Shimon Peres, have spoken of a “tragedy,” which “cannot be compared to
genocide.” The position taken by Israel and some Jewish organizations
is animated by two considerations. One has to do with the uniqueness
of the Holocaust. The other is pure realpolitik. Let us examine these
in turn.

Recognizing the Armenian genocide, so the first argument goes, could
eclipse the singular magnitude of the crimes perpetrated against
the Jews during World War II.[1] This claim is both morally warped
and empirically unfounded. It is morally warped, because we Jews do
not have a monopoly on pain. Our catastrophes are not in a separate
category; we do not feel any more agony for the obliteration of our
families than others do. When Armenians are pricked, they bleed;
when they are poisoned they die.[2] If human suffering is essentially
democratic, Jews cannot, simultaneously, attack those who deny the
Holocaust and assist others who deny the Armenian genocide. The concern
for the legacy of the Holocaust is empirically unfounded, because
other cases of genocide have been recognized without the Holocaust
being forgotten or sidelined. The massacres by the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia and the Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda are now universally
acknowledged. Such recognition has not eclipsed the discussion of
Nazi atrocities. It has, rather, served as a reminder that human
cruelty is as much a reality now as it was in 1915 and 1939.

As for realpolitik, Israel sees Turkey as an all-important
strategic ally in the Middle East – a moderate democratic Muslim
state in a region where both moderation and democracy are in
short supply. Thus, keeping the Turks happy is taken to be an
essential Israeli interest. Two observations are in order. First,
the appeasement of Turkey does not seem to be working. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently accused Israel of “state terrorism”
and compared its policies towards Palestinians to the actions of the
Spanish Inquisition against Jews. Turkey is said to have rolled back
planned contracts to purchase military equipment from Israel and is
now reconsidering a planned deal to transport 15 Million cubes of
water annually to the water-poor Jewish State. Apparently we have
sold our moral integrity in vain. Second, realism in international
affairs, with all its merits, must be subordinate to a nation’s most
basic principles rather than dictate them. In the case of Israel, the
most deep-seated of those principles is that the state was founded as
a barrier against genocide, as a safe-haven for Jews the world over
to protect them from future persecution. The refusal to recognize
other cases of genocide undermines this fundamental tenet. It provides
invaluable ammunition to those who claim that history is written by the
victors. If that position takes hold, no group, including the Jews,
would ever be safe from hounding, and Israel would have undermined
the main reason for its own existence.

On August 22, 1939, days before the Nazis invaded Poland, Hitler
addressed his military chiefs in Obersalzburg. “The aim of war is not
to reach definite lines,” he told them “but to annihilate the enemy
physically. It is by this means that we shall obtain the vital living
space that we need.” He then went on to ask them a rhetorical question:
“Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?” The Israeli
government, for one, does not. History, it would seem, has a cruel
sense of humor.

Nir Eisikovits, an Israeli attorney, is completing his Ph.D. in legal
and political philosophy at Boston University.

NOTES

[1] In early 2002, after Israeli ambassador to Georgia and Armenia
Rivka Cohen rejected any comparison between the Holocaust and the
Armenian Genocide, Israel’s foreign ministry released a statement
including the following text: ” …Israel 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 genocide. This does not in any way diminish
the magnitude of the tragedy.”

[2] W. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.