ARMENIA OPTIMISTIC ISRAEL WILL RECOGNIZE ‘GENOCIDE’
By Michael Freund

Jerusalem Post
96847413051&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowF ull
Dec 23 2007

The government of Armenia is "very hopeful" that Israel will soon
recognize the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by Turks as an
"act of genocide," a senior Armenian official told The Jerusalem Post
last week.

"The Armenian and Israeli people are united in the suffering that
each endured, and no one but the Jewish people can better understand
our situation," Sergo Yeritsyan, a former education minister who now
serves as a senior adviser to President Robert Kocharian, said.

"The world has recognized and accepted the Holocaust as an historical
event, and the world is now acknowledging the genocide of Armenians,"
Yeritsyan said in an interview in his office in the Armenian capital
of Yerevan.

"I am very hopeful that Israel, step by step, will recognize it as
well… We are very hopeful and we are waiting for it," Yeritsyan said.

Contacted by the Post, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry
declined to comment.

Historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenian Christians
were killed by Ottoman Turks in a massacre that began in 1915, in
what some scholars have declared to be the first systematic act of
genocide in the 20th century.

Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the
toll has been grossly inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

Israel has thus far tried to distance itself from the issue, not
wanting to offend Ankara and souring relations.

Yeritsyan insisted that the killings constituted genocide and stressed
that it was essential for the international community to recognize
it as such.

"One must be honest about history," the former professor, who holds a
PhD in philology, said, adding that "failure to do so only increases
the chances of such a thing happening again."

Yeritsyan welcomed the recent decision by American Jewish organizations
such as the Anti-Defamation League, which in August reversed its
traditional position and declared the killing of the Armenians was
"tantamount to genocide," saying this was "of course a positive
development."

"We, the Armenians, are very emotionally connected with this issue,
as you can understand," Yeritsyan said. "But I believe that Jews all
over the world can help us to cure the pain."

"We must work together towards greater respect and cooperation between
Armenia and Jewish people all over the world," Yeritsyan said. "It
is our responsibility to history."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress