AZG DAILY #41, 10-03-2009
Genocide Update: 2009-03-10 00:22:37 (GMT +04:00)
JEWS MUST REJECT TURKEY’S GENOCIDE DENIAL
Guest Voice
By Norman L. Epstein
Thursday, 05 March 2009
"Dogs can enter, but no Jews, no Armenians" read the odious sign that
encapsulates the pernicious anti-Semitism percolating in Turkey ` all
in response to Israel’s recent incursion in Gaza.
Demonstrators in Turkey disparage Jews and Armenians.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been leading the charge,
foaming at the mouth with his repeated rantings and accusations
against Israel of "mass murder" and "massacring innocent civilians."
Turkish media outlets have further fomented anti-Israel and
anti-Jewish sentiment with similar hyperbole. Mass rallies all over
Turkey, some of the largest worldwide, have deteriorated into vile
anti-Semitic spectacles.
The height of hypocrisy is self-evident in Turkey’s own highly suspect
human rights record. Moreover, its own campaign against Kurdish
separatists in northern Iraq has caused thousands of innocent civilian
deaths over the years, with little effort to avoid mass casualties.
Israel has carved out a close strategic alliance with Turkey recently,
the only genuine one it has with a country in the Muslim world. It was
born out of necessity, and Turkey has served as a mediator in peace
talks, particularly with Syria, in exchange for advancing Turkey’s
military know-how and technology.
In light of recent events, there has been much reflection in Israel on
the make-up and tenor of this expedient alliance. I am not going to
debate the merits of the relationship. However, there is a very
unsettling element to it. This partnership is predicated on pro-Israel
groups in the United States working in concert with pro-Turkey groups
to prevent the U.S. Congress from passing a resolution (which has
passed in Canada) recognizing the genocide of the Armenians by Turkish
nationalists at the beginning of the 20th century. This denial by
Turkey exists despite compelling and irrefutable evidence.
During the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, a group of army
officers overthrew the sultan in 1908. Turkish nationalism began to
flourish, and the Armenians, a significant Christian minority, began
to assert their own cultural identity and push for regional
autonomy. The Turkish leadership resented the Armenians’ resistance to
assimilation, and plans were made to exterminate the Armenian
population.
It started on April 24, 1915, when Armenian leaders were summarily
executed. Men of military age were forced into labour camps, and those
who survived starvation and illness were shot in mass graves. Hangings
and mass executions continued on a large scale. Women, children and
the elderly were forced to march for weeks without food, with few
surviving.
Females of all ages were brutally subjected to torture, rape and
murder. Those who survived such atrocities threw themselves off
cliffs. In the end, 1.8 million Armenians perished.
Since the inception of modern Turkey in 1922, resolute denial of the
Armenian genocide has been intrinsic to Turkish society. It’s a crime
to speak of the genocide.
A further disturbing aspect of this denial of history is that Adolf
Hitler used the Armenian genocide as a template for the Nazis’ Final
Solution, curtly saying at the time, "Who today remembers the
extermination of the Armenians?"
As Jews, we are ever so vigilant and outraged whenever diabolical
Holocaust deniers rear their ugly heads and spread poisonous
hatred. Therefore, it is an absolute moral imperative that Jewish
groups not become a party to Turkey’s denial of its crime.
Israel is strong enough to redefine its strategic alliance with Turkey
on its own terms. But it is morally unacceptable that a people reborn
out of the ashes of the Holocaust be complicit, even reluctantly, in
the denial of another genocide. It goes against the very essence of
the Jewish soul.
Norman Epstein is a physician in Toronto and the founder of Canadians
Against Slavery and Torture in Sudan.