Author: Albert Nalbandian

 

 

 

Armenian Revolutionary Federation Hai Tahd Committee representatives consulted with the Nagorno Karabakh Republic President Bako Sahakian this week at Artsakh’s Tigranakert Muesum Conplex. They met with reporters in Yerevan today to present the results of the discussions.

The four-day war and its consequences were high on the agenda.  Hakob Ter-Khachaturian, President of the Governing Bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, said the forthcoming actions will be focused on countering Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian propaganda in the West. Besides, he, said, the efforts will continue towards the realization of Artsakh’s right to self-determination and its recognition by foreign countries. Hakob Ter-Khachaturian considers that there has been some positive progress in that direction.

“A number of US States have already recognized Artsakh. We hope the eighth state will join them soon. Although it’s on the regional level, the process has started. In Uruguay it was recognized by law, and was followed by a statement of the Foreign Minister,” he reminded.

Hakob Ter-Khachaturian stressed the importance of uniting the Diaspora potential to support the Armenian Army.

Vera Yacoubian, the Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee in the Middle East, the issue of support to Syrian Armenians is also on the agenda. There are concerns connected with the migration of Syrian Armenians to the West, particularly Canada, and also Australia.

She said representatives of the Hai Thad Committees coordinated the strategies with the Foreign Ministries of Armenia and Artsakh. She said that “the full utilization of the potential of Armenians against the Azerbaijani oil dollars and military policy will produce results.”

 

Eighteen songs will participate in the first Semi-Final, and professional juries in each of the participating countries, as well as in Sweden, France and Spain, voted on yesterday’s dress rehearsal. They accounted for 50% of the overall total.

Tonight the remaining 50% of the votes will be decided by the public televote in the same 21 countries. These votes will be added to those of the juries to determine the ten countries that will qualify for the Grand Final on Saturday the 14th of May.

Turkey needs to realize that Israel’s debate is only remotely related to ties with Ankara, but rather holds a special place in the broader debate about the Holocaust and Jewish victimhood.

By Louis Fishman

Once again the official day commemorating the 1915 Armenian Genocide, April 24, has passed without Israel issuing a statement of official recognition. As a country that inherited the legacy of the European genocide of Jews — the Holocaust — its recognition of the systematic killing of Ottoman Armenians would not only amount to a historically just move, but would also be an important step in promoting the study of comparative genocides, giving a special meaning to the important motto of “never again.” Further, it could lead to the understanding of how Turkish denial has only prevented the country from moving forward, showing Israel the need to end the denial of its own injustices.
Israel’s choosing not to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide is directly related to its attempts to maintain ties with Turkey, in good days and bad. At the height of Turkish-Israel relations in the 1990s, Israel maintained this policy in order not to risk jeopardizing its strong ties with the Turkish state, not to mention its arms deals. Shamefully, U.S. Jewish lobbies were coopted as a way to block American recognition of the Armenians’ tragedy as well.
Simply, Turkish tank deals trumped the moral and historical obligation of genocide recognition. Despite this, the internal debate surrounding the non-recognition emerged in 2000 when the liberal leftist education minister, the late Yossi Sarid (Meretz), attended Jerusalem’s 85th Armenian Genocide memorial ceremony. There he stated, “The Armenian Memorial Day should be a day of reflection and introspection for all of us, a day of soul-searching. On this day, we as Jews, victims of the Shoah [Holocaust] should examine our relationship to the pain of others.” In this speech he mentioned the word genocide no less than 10 times.
Despite years of strained relations that hit a pinnacle with the 2010 Gaza Flotilla affair, Israel still has not recognized the genocide. Ironically, the new reason was that Israeli policy makers believed this could lead to a full break in relations. However, before reaching this conclusion, U.S. Jewish lobbies had already opted out of taking their usual role in blocking Armenian Genocide recognition, and the Knesset debated the matter. While both groups denied this was related to the Flotilla, the message was clearly one of punishment for Turkey’s role. Even I argued against this, since recognition as a punishment against Turkey equaled no less of a farce than the previous situation.
In the summer of 2014 however, after Reuven Rivlin, a longtime advocate of Armenian Genocide recognition, became Israel’s president, it seemed that Israeli recognition would finally come at the 2015 centennial commemoration of that genocide. However, this too fell through due to pressure from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Despite this, Rivlin came quite close to offering official recognition, saying “the Armenian people were the first victims of modern mass killing,” and stressing that many Jewish people in Ottoman Palestine witnessed the horrors of the killings, a known fact. Rivlin’s words reiterated the fact that among the Israeli public, few doubt that it was a genocide – it is known in Hebrew as the Hashoah Ha’armenit, the Armenian Shoah (holocaust).
Perhaps now that Israel and Turkey have made numerous statements that they are close to renewing full diplomatic ties, Israel should make clear that its relations cannot be held hostage to Turkey’s intractable stance towards this topic, and that Armenian Genocide recognition is not about being a friend or enemy of Turkey. Further, Turkey needs to realize that in Israel the debate is only remotely related to Ankara, and rather holds a special place in the greater debate of the “uniqueness of the Holocaust” and the question of Jewish victimhood, which hits at the heart of Israeliness and the question on how to memorialize the Holocaust.
With April 24 falling during Passover this year, it also important to remember that denial is also inherent in the Israeli narrative. Passover, a holiday that celebrates the ancient Israelites’ liberation from slavery, embeds within its modern meaning the sense of freedom, and sets into motion the national days of Holocaust Memorial Day, moving on to Memorial Day for its fallen soldiers, and finally culminating in Independence Day. However, for Israel, freedom and independence amounted to the Nakba — the Catastrophe — for the Palestinians.
Even if different in scope, it can be argued that Israel has adopted Turkey’s stance of denial as a model toward the Palestinian Nakba — the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from the land — denying not only the existence of the event itself, which led to the forced expulsion or flight of 750,000 Palestinians, but also subsequently the erasing of the memory of a Palestinian past and the physical erasing of their presence in the geographical landscape of the country. In both countries, this has also included the use of legislation and courts to block the memory.
It is time that Israel take the moral high ground and recognize the Armenian Genocide. No less important is the need to do away with its denial of the Palestinian Nakba. Otherwise, like Turkey, it will remain raveled in conflict. In both cases, the long road to reconciliation starts with the recognition of the crimes that paved the way for the founding of these subsequent nation-states. Only by recognizing this will it allow Israel – and Turkey – the much needed opportunity to move forward.
Louis Fishman is an assistant professor at Brooklyn College who has lived in Turkey and writes about Turkish and Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

German Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier had a meeting with OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs James Warlick, Igor Popov and Pierre Andrieu and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Discussions focused on the Nagorno Karabakh issue.

By Harut Sassounian 
Publisher, The California Courier

In last week’s large-scale attack on Artsakh (Karabakh), the Azeri military killed and injured dozens of Armenian soldiers and civilians, using the sophisticated weapons purchased from Israel and Russia for billions of dollars.

The Armenian government and Armenians worldwide accused both Israel and Russia of responsibility for the innocent Armenian lives lost in the recent Azeri invasion.

Prof. Israel Charny, a righteous Jew and a staunch defender of human rights, could not remain silent knowing that his country — Israel — had a bloody role in the Armenian killings. As Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, Dr. Charny sent a scathing commentary to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, under the provocative title: “Would Israel Sell a Used Drone to a Hitler?” Here is what he wrote:

“If the Nazis were not at all murdering Jews but ‘only’ were murdering say hated Slavs, Gypsies, and Jehovah’s Witnesses; and if our beloved State of Israel were in existence; would you agree to our selling arms to the Nazis?

“Israel is reported to have sold billions of dollars of arms including to governments that are killing or threatening to attack victim peoples. Last week, there came reports that an Israeli drone in the hands of Azerbaijan — a huge arms customer of ours — was responsible for the deaths of six Armenians in the Armenian enclave Nagorno Karabakh.

“I am ashamed!

“The Armenians were the victims of a major genocide 100 years ago that has even been called the ‘Armenian Shoah’ by some Israeli scholars, including from Bar Ilan University. A great deal of their national and cultural concern continues to focus passionately on the memory of that genocide (does that sound familiar to us Jews?). For many years now, we Israelis — whether led by Labor or Likud — have insulted and hurt the Armenian people by failing to recognize their genocide officially and formally. Would we ourselves tolerate another government — say the U.S. or England — failing to recognize the Holocaust because of their realpolitik interest with the perpetrator government?

“One senior Armenian official has written several of us in Israel to express his deep pain as well as indignation now not only at our cowardly and self-serving denials of the Armenian Genocide, but also at our thick military trade alliance with Azerbaijan. I am reminded of the prophet Nathan crying out to King David for an earlier though more delectable murderous act of self-interest: It’s bad enough that you killed him, are you also taking a profit from the sordid affair? The Azeris are a Turkic people who adhere to Turkey’s bizarre and fascist tradition of rewriting history and denying the Armenian Genocide.

“In general, how much do we Israelis want to strengthen our economy by lucrative arms sales? Of course, ‘everyone’ in the world is doing it, but do we have to also? Have we given up the image/dream of Israel as a moral leader of peoples on this planet? Is this idea tiresome, naïve, and childlike in a madly destructive and self-destroying world?

“An alternative concept could be that along with our building arms first and foremost for the defense of Israel, that we sell — or contribute — arms only to underdog peoples who are facing mass destruction, and/or to allies like the U.S., who are essentially committed to shared democratic values and peace. Of course, we will still be making some mistakes, but at least our conscience will be more clear that we have not delivered used arms to the ‘Nazis.’

“To my Armenian colleagues and friends, I can only say that as a Jew and as an Israeli, I am mortified — and angry.”

Prof. Charny’s harsh words are fully justified as both Israeli and Russian officials have shamefully pledged to continue shipping more weapons to Azerbaijan!

Dr. Charny has never shied away from expressing his critical views on Israel’s immoral policies on Armenian issues. In a scathing letter in 2001, he told Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “You have gone beyond a moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to trespass…. As a Jew and an Israeli, I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”

Prof. Charny should be highly commended for his bold and righteous stand, taking to task the callous leaders of his own country!

A prosecutor has demanded a 7-year imprisonment for prominent Armenian businessman Levon Hayrapetyan who stands charged with stealing $700,000 from the mother of former Bashkortostan senator Igor Izmestyev who was sentenced to life for terrorism, RAPSI reported on Tuesday from Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court.

The prosecutor also asked the court to collect from the businessman 20.8 million rubles ($310,000) in damages in favor of the injured party.

Investigators believe that the businessman has misled the woman by promising a reduced sentence for her son. In practice, he could not influence the judgment. The maximum penalty for such crime is 10 years in prison.

Hayrapetyan has pleaded not guilty. According to his lawyer, the case has been framed up.

Hayrapetyan also stands charged with involvement in an embezzlement case under which Ural Rakhimov, son of the former head of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov, sold Bashneft, a midsized oil company he headed for three years, to the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema in 2009 at a huge “discount” of $500 million.

In early October 2014, Hayrapetyan was placed under house arrest. His defense attorney asked the court to release him, citing health problems.

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev agreed new tariffs on the Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia, Abrahamyan said on Thursday after completion of talks.

“We thoroughly discussed reduction of prices for supplies of Russian natural gas to Armenia,” Abrahamyan said. An agreement reached “was fixed by signing the relevant document,” he added.

“We agreed energy issues, including natural gas supply, which is definitely critical to ensure stable energy consumption in Armenia and normal development of the Republic of Armenia on the whole,” Russian Prime Minister said in his turn.

The natural gas price for Armenia will be reduced from $165 to $150 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of 2016.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Mdvedev has arrived in Yerevan at the invitation of Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.

The delegation headed by the Russian PM comprises a number of government representatives, as well as the Director General of “Roskosmos” State Corporation Igor Komorov and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

Hovik Abrahyan welcomed his Russian counterpart at Zvartnots Airpors.

Immediately after the official welcome ceremony the Russian delegation left for Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian genocide victims.

US Vice-President Joe Biden on Monday said he held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and urged them to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“As I told Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan, comprehensive settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh is critical for their stability, security, prosperity,” he wrote on Twitter.

As I told Presidents Aliyev & Sargsyan, comprehensive settlement in is critical for their stability, security, prosperity.

— Vice President Biden (@VP)

U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) today released a statement in response to Azerbaijan’s launch of military operations against Nagorno Karabakh:

“It is unacceptable and reckless for Azerbaijan to blatantly violate its ceasefire agreement with Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic with a series of deliberate, offensive attacks last weekend. Baku’s warmongering has led to numerous Armenian deaths, both civilian and military, as well as significant Azerbaijani causalities. I strongly condemn Azerbaijan for instigating this violence against the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, and urge Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to stop his aggressive military onslaught.

“In addition, I call on President Obama and the State Department to hold President Aliyev fully accountable for this violence, and to support the implementation of the pro-peace steps laid out by Reps. Royce and Engel that include an agreement from all sides not to deploy snipers along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact, the placement of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-location systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line of contact, and the deployment of additional OSCE observers along the line of contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.”