US JEWS MAY BE READY TO STEP INTO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DEBATE
Herb Keinon And Haviv Rettig Gur

Jerusalem Post
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March 24 2009

Despite a serious strain in relations with Turkey as a result of harsh
Turkish criticism of Operation Cast Lead, Israel has not changed its
policy on the question of whether the killing in the early 20th century
of some 1.5 million Armenians should be characterized as genocide.

This issue is once again on the agenda as US lawmakers introduced
last week, as they do every spring, a resolution that would call the
killings a "genocide."

"Our position on this has not changed," one senior Israeli diplomatic
official told The Jerusalem Post.

Israel’s position on this matter was last formally articulated in
March 2007, when the Knesset shelved a proposal for a parliamentary
discussion on the issue.

Health Minister Ya’acov Ben-Yizri, speaking on behalf of Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni, said at the time: "As Jews and Israelis, we have
special sympathy and a moral obligation to commemorate the massacres
that were perpetrated against the Armenians in the last years of
Ottoman rule. The state of Israel never denied these terrible acts. On
the contrary, we understand fully the intense emotional feelings
aroused by this, taking into consideration the number of victims,
and the suffering of the Armenian people."

At the same time, Ben-Yizri also said that Israel understood that
this was a "loaded" issue between the Armenians and Turks, and that
Israel hoped "both sides will reach an open dialogue that will enable
them to heal the wounds that have been left open."

The diplomatic official said that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s vicious criticism of the IDF’s actions in Gaza had not
altered Israel’s position on the Armenian genocide issue.

Israel’s position on this is important, because it impacts the position
of major American Jewish organizations which in the past have helped
Turkey lobby against the legislation in Congress to declare the event
a genocide.

American Jewish leaders insist that "the relationships between Turkey,
Israel and the United States remain very important," said Conference
of Presidents executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein.

"Our position hasn’t changed," added Jess Hordes, head of the
Anti-Defamation League’s Washington office. The position currently
states that that a congressional resolution on the issue would be
"counterproductive."

While the ADL has labeled what happened to the Armenians a genocide,
Hordes noted, "this issue is best handled by the parties themselves"
rather than by Congress. He also noted that since the Gaza operation,
the ADL had seen Turkey take steps to deal with anti-Semitism
domestically.

"Hopefully the differences that emerged in this operation will be
behind us. Both countries recognize they have strategic relations
that are important to maintain."

But for all the assurances, some Jewish groups say they are beginning
to see support for Turkey’s positions decrease among American Jews.

In February, shortly after the worst of the Israel-Turkey row over
Gaza, a senior official in a major American Jewish organization
admitted that "no Jew or Israeli in his right mind will insult Turkey,
but next time they might not come to Turkey’s aid or equivocate quite
so much on the issue."

Another senior official, speaking to the Post on Tuesday, suggested
the shift may be more dramatic.

"The grassroots membership of the major organizations has never been
happy about looking the other way about the massacre of Armenians,
even if it happened so long ago. After all, ‘so long ago’ was just
25 years before the Holocaust," the official said. "But [supporting
Turkey] was seen as a matter of life or death for Israelis."

This has changed palpably, the official said. "Erdogan’s behavior
in Davos was disgraceful. He called Israelis ‘baby-killers.’ He told
Turkey’s parliament that the Jews control the media. He said things
that, if he were a political leader in America, we’d be demonstrating
outside his house. People are now asking themselves, ‘Who are we
going to bat for?’ There’s not a lot of support in the grassroots
for bending over backwards to meet the needs of Turkey right now."

Even before Erdogan’s outburst, the issue was a point of contention
among some American Jewish advocacy groups. In 2007, ADL National
Director Abe Foxman triggered a storm when he reversed the traditional
American Jewish organizational position on the issue and, while in
a dispute in the Boston area over the matter, released a statement
saying that had the word "genocide" existed in the early 20th century,
it would have been used to describe events of 1915 perpetrated by
the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians.

The Turks were infuriated at the time, warning that Turkish-Israeli
ties could be harmed if the American Jewish organizations did not
work – as they had done in the past – to ensure that the US Congress
did not pass a resolution characterizing the massacre a genocide.

The legislation was eventually removed from the table after then-US
president George W. Bush and numerous former secretaries of state and
defense wrote letters saying that passing the legislation would harm
American interests.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that US President Barack
Obama was hesitating on a campaign pledge to designate the killings
as genocide. Obama is scheduled to visit Turkey on April 5, and is
looking to improve ties with Ankara and enlist its help in dealing
with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, something that would be complicated
by calling the events genocide.

The paper reported that improved relations between Turkey and Armenia
were among the reasons the Obama administration was using to explain
postponing a presidential statement on the matter.