CHOOSING ALLIES OVER PRINCIPLES
The Jewish Exponent, PA
April 26 2007
Congressional fight over Turkish genocide of Armenians puts Jews in
a difficult spot
If you had the choice between telling the truth about 20th-century
genocide — and thereby alienating a contemporary strategic ally
of the United States and Israel — or ignoring or downplaying the
genocide and keeping the ally happy, which would you do?
Is this just an interesting hypothetical for grad students in ethics
or philosophy to chew on?
No. It is a real-life question that must be answered not only by
American lawmakers, but by Jewish organizations that are simultaneously
pledged to promote both the strategic interests of both the the
U.S.-Israel alliance, as well as speak out on issues of human rights.
A Faithful Ally The dilemma concerns the history of Turkey, a nation
that has in recent decades assumed tremendous importance in the
Middle East.
Turkey is a NATO ally that faithfully stood by the United States
during the Cold War, even sending troops to fight alongside ours
in Korea. It was also the first Islamic country in the region to
recognize the State of Israel.
More than that, its defense establishment has ties with the Israel
Defense Force, and the two nations form an informal, loose-alliance
of non-Arab states with a mutual interest in resisting the rise not
only of Islamist terror, but the malevolent influence of rogue states
like Syria and Iran.
That’s due primarily to the influence of Kemal Attaturk, who led the
Turkish state that emerged from the ruin of the Ottoman Empire after
World War I. Attaturk created a modern Turkish nationalism based on
strict secularism.
Relations between Israel and Turkey have cooled a bit in recent
years due to the election triumphs of Turkish Islamists who sought to
distance Ankara from Jerusalem. And in the aftermath of the country’s
refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and their embrace
last year of a Palestinian Hamas terrorists, they can no longer be
termed reliable.
But even pessimists about the future of Turkey understand its crucial
role as a firewall against jihadists. Turkey’s military — the most
powerful force in its society — is still an effective check on the
Islamists, and has participated in joint military exercises with
the Israelis.
But it does have one sensitive point that poses a problem. It refuses
to own up to the crimes committed by Ottoman forces against ethnic
Armenians during World War I.
Though the Turks like to act as if this episode is a great historical
mystery that defies explanation, the truth is relatively simple.
During the First World War, the Ottoman Turks fought the Russians.
Caught in the middle were Christian Armenians, who were despised as
dhimmi sympathizers with the foreign enemy. After a series of military
reverses, the so-called "Young Turk" government in Istanbul ordered
mass deportations of Armenians from parts of Anatolia. From 1915-17, as
many as 1 million Armenians died as result of the attending hardships,
as well as atrocities on the part of Turkish troops.
It was the first modern genocide, and the fact that the perpetrators
were never held accountable is often cited as a reason why the Nazis
thought they could get away with trying to exterminate the Jews.
But since their modern state came into being fighting for the hegemony
of Turkish ethnicity over the large non-Turkish enclaves inside
their country, the notion of owning up to the truth about that era
has always been anathema to the Turks. To this day, their government
denies that the deaths of Armenians were the result of a concerted
plan, and claim that it should only be understood in the context of
a war in which casualties were experienced by both sides.
The Turks would do better to acknowledge what happened and move on.
But living as they do with ongoing conflicts over land and identity
with Cypriot Greeks and Kurds, they cling to their policy of
stonewalling the Armenians and demand that their allies back them up.
For almost a century, Armenians have sought to keep the memory of
their suffering alive. That’s the point of a congressional resolution
on the question set to be passed by the House of Representatives that
will recognize the atrocities against the Armenians as "genocide."
You would think that a Jewish community that has expended so much
effort not only to enshrine the memory of the Holocaust but to ensure
that it serve as an example to warn against crimes against others
would be aligned with the Armenians, but that’s not entirely correct.
Truth or Survival?
Though many Jews support the genocide resolution, some of the biggest
Jewish communal players, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the
Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (which has worked for
years to build support for the Israel-Turkey alliance), are not. ADL
head Abe Foxman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that "the Jewish
community shouldn’t be the arbiter of that history, nor should the
U.S. Congress."
How do we balance the need to support historical truth against the
strategic imperative of the present?
The answer is that we can’t.
No one should expect Jews, of all people, to lie about mass murder.
The Turkish policy of official historical revisionism is as absurd as
it is counterproductive. The Turks’ stand on the Armenians only harms
their international standing and efforts to integrate with the West.
But their realpolitik apologists have one point worth considering.
Given the current state of the Middle East and the West’s ongoing
battle against the jihadists, is this really the best moment for us
to be pressing the Turks about their past?
In theory, a victory for historic truth ought to serve as insurance
for Jews and any other people who have faced annihilation and may
yet again. Moralists may be right to pose this question as one of
absolutes, but in wartime, you can’t always pick and choose your
allies. Would it be worth it to damage an alliance with Turkey just
to make a point about the truth of Armenian suffering? That might
makes us feel righteous, but if it leads to more deaths in the future,
would it be right?
Will an Armenian genocide resolution help us defend Israel against the
threat of, say, an Iranian attempt at nuclear genocide better than a
friendly Turkey? Some might believe that to be true. But can anyone
who cares about the possibility of another mass murder of a non-Muslim
population in the Middle East be indifferent to the possibility that
it won’t?
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
