ISRAEL GRAPPLES WITH WHETHER TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

19:47, 22 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Nachman Shai of Israel’s Zionist Union Party says “it’s time for Israel
to to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, The Associated Press reports.

Shai will travel to Armenia on April 24 with a group of lawmakers
to participate in the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide. The delegation is under strict instructions to
refer to the killings as a “national tragedy” rather than “genocide”

“In foreign policy, there are interests and there are values,” he
told The Associated Press. “In this case I think values should trump
interests. As Jews, we must recognize it.”

Archbishop Aris Shirvanian, a top official at the Jerusalem Armenian
Patriarchate, said he was pleased Israel was sending a delegation to
the ceremony but said it should go further.

“We, the Armenians and the Jewish people, have suffered the same fate,
and the Armenian genocide has served as a predecessor to the Jewish
Holocaust,” said Shirvanian, himself a descendent of survivors. “So
Israel should have been actually one of the first countries to support
and recognize the Armenian genocide.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel’s official
position hasn’t changed and refused to elaborate when pressed to
explain why not.

“We are extremely sensitive and sympathetic to the terrible tragedy
of the Armenians during the First World War,” he said. “One thing is
the historic debate over how to label the tragedy and the other is the
recognition that something terrible happened to the Armenian people,
and that is much more important.”

Only two dozen, mostly Western, countries have officially recognized
the genocide, including Canada, France, Italy and Argentina. Isaac
Lubelsky, who teaches genocide studies at the Open University in Tel
Aviv, said the United States and Israel were both “glaringly absent”
from the list.

“The time has come to listen to the feelings and the conscience of
the countries of the enlightened world and to recognize, without fear,
the Armenian genocide,” he wrote in the Maariv daily.

A group of prominent Israeli academics, artists and former generals
and politicians recently signed a petition calling on Israel to follow
the pope’s lead and recognize the genocide.

“As the children of a people that has known a Holocaust and which
fights against its denial, it behooves us to show special sensitivity
to the disaster of another people,” the petition reads.

Yossi Sarid, a former leader of the dovish Meretz party and an
outspoken critic of what he called Israel’s “cynical” stance, was
even more blunt. As education minister in 2000, he gave a landmark
speech to an Armenian church in Jerusalem recognizing their genocide,
and as a result became persona non grata in Turkey.

But he says the United States, not Turkey, is standing in the way of
Israeli recognition.

“Ultimately, we are a satellite state of the United States. When
America finally decides to recognize it I suppose we will as well,”
he told the AP.

But he said Israel should have led the way. The German Nazis and their
collaborators murdered 6 million Jews during World War II, wiping
out a third of world Jewry, and Israel has been at the forefront of
international efforts to combat its denial.

“We are after all the ‘experts’ on genocide, so it is doubly
important,” he said. “But in a way, we too are Holocaust deniers,
so long as it isn’t our Holocaust.”