HERZL’S CONTEMPT FOR ARMENIANS WAS AN ORIGINAL SIN OF ZIONISM
by Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
rzls-contempt-for-armenians-was-an-original-sin-of -zionism.html
August 13, 2009
Last night I caught Charlie Rose talking to Peter Balakian, translator
of the book, Armenian Golgotha by his great uncle Grigoris Balakian,
which describes the Armenian genocide of the 19-teens. Balakian said
more than 1 million Armenians were "exterminated." Then he echoed
Obama and said that until the Turks come to terms with what they did
100 years ago, they will never move forward as a modern democracy
that respects minority rights.
Of course I thought about the Nakba of 1948, and the Israeli refusal
to acknowledge it. And along with that the oppression of a minority
that permeates Israeli society-lately in this amazing report of a
one-year-old expelled from a day-care center because she is Arab.
But I also thought about Theodor Herzl on the Armenian issue. Herzl’s
diary demonstrates that indifference to an indigenous Asian minority
is in the DNA of Zionism.
In 1896, Herzl made a trip to Constantinople to try and meet Sultan
Abdul Hamid so as to negotiate the purchase of Palestine, which was
then part of the Ottoman Empire. Herzl was prepared to offer millions
of pounds to resolve the Turkish debt crisis, and get a Jewish state
in exchange. The Sultan declined to meet with him (they met a couple
years later) but his aides gave Herzl some terms. Could he work on
the Armenian issue in the European press? Turkey was getting bashed
for its treatment of the Armenians. And Herzl, who always bragged
that his pen was not for sale, agreed to do so.
I’m not going to go through all Herzl’s work on behalf of the Turks
on the Armenian issue now. This is a blogpost, not a scholarly
article. But in seeking to "pacify" the Armenians, Herzl visited an
Armenian revolutionary in his London apartment, Nazarbek (evidently
the poet Avetis Nazarbekian). Herzl: The house is noisy, second-rate,
middle-class elegance, and from time to time wild Armenian faces appear
in the crack of the door. They are refugees who find shelter here.
[Herzl then meets Nazarbek] Black, tangled, serpentine locks, black
beard, pale face. He mistrusts the Sultan and would like to have
guarantees before he submits. His political ideas are confused, his
acquaintance with the European situation downright childish…it
seems, his word is obeyed by the poor people in Armenia who are
being massacred. He lives in London, not uncomfortably. I asked
whether he knew who was finally benefitting from all this unrest,
Russia or England?
He replied that he did not care; he was revolting only againt the
Turks.
The woman [Nazarbek’s wife] kept interrupting us, speaking in Armenian
and evidently against me. She has a wicked look; and who knows how
much she is to blame for the bloodshed…
I promised I would try to get the Sultan to stop the massacres and
new arrests, as a token of his good will…
I offer this not as the final word on the Jewish-Armenian
relationship. I don’t know much about it. Though right in line with
Herzl, Abe Foxman took the Turks’ side recently, during the flap over
recognition of the Armenian genocide.
I offer it chiefly as light on the Israel lobby and its methods. Herzl
was playing the Great Game of world politics. He was a genius at
it. Thus his concern with Russian and English interests. He didn’t
seek a mass movement at first; he sought the help of Jewish bankers and
editors in his effort to parley with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
for a colonial chunk of the empire. Herzl didn’t want to be a court
Jew- no, he wanted to be a statesman for the Jews, and god bless him-
but he operated in the courts of Europe, not always successfully. And
as I have said before, I bet I would have been a Zionist back then.
Face to face with a man representing oppressed indigenous Asians who
faced genocidal forces in their society, Herzl was contemptuous. And
that Jewish history is still with us. Cultivating the powerful,
using financial influence, expressing contempt for an indigenous
Asian people-these traits have been hallmarks of the Israel lobby. I
say history because it’s coming to an end. There are other ways of
being Jewish in modern society.