Author: nina hovnanian

Impediments to regional development in the South Caucasus
By Jason Katz
Jan. 8, 2015

[Katz is the principal of TSG, LLC, a consultancy that advises foreign
governments, NGOs and corporations in the realms of strategic
communications, politics and policy. He is also the former head of
Public Affairs and Public Relations for the American Jewish Committee,
based in Los Angeles.]

Few regions of the world are, in general, as prosperous, stable and
reliably Western-oriented as the South Caucasus. The South Caucasus,
situated on the southern frontier of what was the Soviet Union, has
become, with one exception, one of the most cohesively prosperous
regions in the world and amongst the most influential and affluent in
the former Soviet Union.

Comprised of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and peripherally Turkey, the
South Caucasus region is, mostly, energy rich and stands as a much
needed and viable alternative for European natural gas supplies in the
near-term and well into the future. Read that as an alternative to the
chaotic, military and foreign policy driven natural gas from Moscow.

Recently, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia met
in Turkey’s northeastern province of Kars to discuss regional
cooperation. This fourth trilateral summit included meetings between
Azerbaijan’s Elmar Mammadyarov, Georgia’s Tamar Beruchashvili and
Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Conspicuously absent from this meeting and, indeed, from all
discussions on regional development, energy and general regional
prosperity was Armenia. Armenia, another former Soviet Republic, has
oddly chosen to excuse itself from the growing prosperity of the
region.

Why, you ask? Armenia has taken a decidedly different path, a path
that has necessitated all but the complete surrender of Armenia’s
sovereignty. As the other nations of the South Caucasus have embarked
upon and continue to navigate independent foreign and economic
policies leading to prosperity for their people, Armenia has
increasingly become a vassal state of the Russian Federation in direct
contradiction to the best interests of their people.

Armenia’s borders and airspace are patrolled by Moscow. In fact,
Armenia is the last of the former Soviet Republics to host Russian
military bases, even recently signing agreements to keep them there
well into the coming decades – 2044. Recently, Russia’s FSB, a
successor to KGB, issued a press statement about its operation in
Armenia, nominally a foreign state! As the South Caucasus region and
surrounding regions seek closer links with the European Union, Armenia
has opted to join Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal attempt
to usurp the EU, the Eurasian Customs Union suddenly interrupting its
half-hearted talks with EU. Armenia even joined nations like North
Korea, Syria, Sudan and a couple of other rogues, voting against
Ukraine’s territorial integrity at UN in 2014.

This is all done against the backdrop of an increasingly poor nation
in Armenia and a severely dwindling population as a result of mass
exoduses of Armenians to other nations due to the dire economic
situation there.

The answer to Armenian prosperity is sadly quite simple. Leave behind
the shackles imposed by the Russians, past wars with Azerbaijan and
embrace the future, again in the best interest of the Armenian people.

At the twilight of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a
war over the Azerbaijani lands of Nagorno Karabakh and its surrounding
districts. The Azerbaijanis lost the war as a result of the
significant help rendered by the Red Army and Iran. Following ethnic
cleansing of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding regions,
Azerbaijan possesses nearly a million refugees, designated as
internally displaced peoples. In their place is an unrecognized area,
even by Armenia, seeking to be the second failed Armenian state.
During the fighting, Turkey closed its border with Armenia in
solidarity with Azerbaijan.

Fast forward more than 20 years and the entire region is fabulously
prosperous while Armenia stubbornly holds on to Azerbaijani lands and
is thus left in the cold. It would seem to make sense to the Armenian
leadership and Armenian diaspora, but to few else on the global stage.

Speaking at a joint press conference following the meeting, Cavusoglu
of Turkey eluded to the real players, the afore mentioned nations,
hold out hope for Armenia’s involvement, as Turkey’s Cavusoglu
pronounced that Turkey supports respect for Azerbaijani and Georgian
territories, adding that he hopes Armenia will also cooperate.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Mammadyarov added that problems between
Azerbaijan and Armenia have yet to be solved. “International
agreements should be the basis for a solution,” said Mammadyarov.

Armenian leadership must do itself a favor and in doing so save the
sovereignty and viability of their nation.

Return the occupied lands of Azerbaijan with an ironclad agreement
that Azerbaijanis will return to their homes and lands and that ethnic
Armenians will be protected and given the same rights as any other
citizen of Azerbaijan.

Based on this gesture, work with Turkey to reopen their mutual border.
If events of WWI are an impediment to these negotiations, agree to a
tribunal of scholars to explore exactly what happened in WWI and what
to do about it all these years later.

Work to repair ties and relationships with Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Force the Armenian Diaspora to use the considerable money spent on
lobbying related to the issues of events in WWI and Nagorno Karabakh
to invest in Armenia’s economic survival.

Following these steps, engage in talks on regional development and be
a player in existing and future projects.

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are open to solving this frozen
conflict, furthering and expanding regional development and
integration and most of all Armenia will be better off and stronger
for it.

AGOS, Istambul
Dec 31 2014

Landing Diyarbakır Airport on the Basmacıyans’ land

Uygar Gültekin 12.31.2014 18:18 NEWS

Zuart Sudjian wages formidable legal battle for the return of land
that belongs to her family, unlawfully seized by the State and site of
Diyarbakır Airport today

Zuart Sudjian is an Armenian who resides in the US, and whose family
origins go back to Diyarbakır. A member of Diyarbakır’s Basmacıyan
family, Sudjian lives in California. Unbeknownst to her, the lands he
inherited from her family were appropriated by the state during
cadastral work.

Sudjian filed a formal appeal in 2012 for to return of the lands she
inherited from her family. The court rejected the appeal in 2013 on
the grounds of the statute of limitations. The file was referred to
the Court of Cassation on appeal. The Court of Cassation reversed the
verdict of the local court, and ruled for the rehearing of the case on
the merits. The fate of the plot of land that is also the site of
Diyarbakır Airport will be decided at the end of the legal process.

After the 1915 Genocide, Zuart Sudjian’s family was forced to migrate
first from Diyarbakır to Lebanon, then to Korea, and finally to the
USA. Sudjian presently resides in California. Unbeknownst to her, the
lands she had inherited from her family were appropriated by the state
during cadastral work. The cadastral work was announced only via a
formal newspaper advertisement, and the state seized the land plots,
claiming that the Sudjian family `could not be found’. In 2012,
Sudjian filed an appeal for the return of the lands via her lawyer Ali
ElbeyoÄ?lu.

In the petition, Lawyer ElbeyoÄ?lu stated that they were in possession
of the originals of land deeds for plots in the Diyarbakır Province,
BaÄ?lar District, Alipınar Neighbourhood, and submitted a claim for the
return of her clients’ rights, who could not follow cadastral work
because they lived in the USA. ElbeyoÄ?lu explains that there are no
land deeds in her clients’ name, and that the cadastral work that was
carried out clearly violated the Constitution, and that it was still
possible to validate the land deeds.

ElbeyoÄ?lu submitted a claim for the registration of the title deeds of
the lands that Zuart Sudjian acquired from Tomas Basmacıyan via
inheritance in his name. The Diyarbakır 5th Civil Court of First
Instance rejected the case in April 2013 claiming the statute of
limitations. Sudjian appealed the verdict and the file went to the
Court of Cassation.

A major violation

In the petition of objection he presented to the Court of Cassation,
Lawyer ElbeyoÄ?lu drew attention to the fact that the court’s verdict
violated the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights that
regulated the protection of private property rights.

The petition of objection also stated that the cadastral work had been
carried out unlawfully, and that the work clearly violated the
Constitution, adding, `The aim of cadastral work is to update land
deeds, not to destroy them. The updating of existing land deeds is the
most important obligation. Abiding by this obligation is the most
important duty of the cadastral delegation. The first task in
initiating cadastral work in an area is to implement existing land
deeds. To act against this principle encumbers the state with
responsibility, and no lapse of time is valid in the context of the
responsibilities of the state.’

The petition of objection underlined the fact that there was no valid
grounds for the implementation of the deeds, and stating that is was
possible to determine plot borders today, added `The failure to
implement land deeds of such large areas is clear proof that there has
been a great act of neglect, and the identification and registration
procedure carried out by the cadastral delegation is unlawful’.

ElbeyoÄ?lu also pointed to precedents set by the Court of Cassation in
leading cases.

Court of Cassation reverses verdict

The Court of Cassation’s 16th Civil Chamber examined the file and
reversed the verdict of the local court. The Court of Cassation ruled
for the file to be reprocessed on merits.

The Court of Cassation ruled that the local court had not identified
the immovable assets subject to the case, and that the cadastral
records had not been inspected on the basis of land registers, and
returned the file to the local court. The local court will now decide
whether it will abide by the decision of the Court of Cassation.

Global Post
Jan 6 2015

Turkey vows to actively counter Armenia ‘genocide allegations’

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Ankara would “actively”
challenge a campaign pressuring Turkey to recognise as genocide the
mass killings of Armenians in World War I, on the 100th anniversary of
the tragedy this year.

“I believe that both the foreign ministry and the relevant
institutions will actively counter those allegations,” Erdogan told
Turkey’s ambassadors in a keynote speech, adding that discussions were
already under way to detail an action plan.

One of the sessions at the annual ambassadors’ conference this week in
Ankara focuses on defining a strategy to counter a campaign by Armenia
and the Armenian diaspora who want Turkey to recognise the 1915
killings at the hands of the Ottoman security forces as genocide.

Turkey has so far vehemently rejected the claims and says up to
500,000 Armenians died in fighting and of starvation after Armenians
sided with invading Russian troops. It claims a comparable number of
Turks were also killed.

Last year, Erdogan offered an unprecedented expression of condolence
for the massacres when he was prime minister but this was far from
satisfying the Armenians, who want the deaths of an estimated 1.5
million people recognised as genocide.

On Tuesday, Erdogan accused Armenia of expending its energy on
genocide claims despite Turkey’s will to normalise bilateral ties and
politicising the issue by imposing its own “biased” view point.

Turkey and Armenia in 2009 signed protocols to normalise ties, but
they have still not been ratified by the national parliaments.

Assyrian International News Agency AINA
Jan 7 2015

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America
By Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou

Posted 2015-01-07 20:02 GMT

One of the last diplomats to leave Smyrna after the Turks set the
great Anatolian port city ablaze in September 1922 was the United
States’ Consul General, George Horton. Reflecting on the carnage and
depravity of the Turkish forces tasked by Mustafa Kemal to destroy
Smyrna’s Greeks and every physical semblance of their three-millennial
presence in the magnificent city on the western littoral of Asia
Minor, Horton wrote that “one of the keenest impressions which I
brought away from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the
human race.” The shame that Horton expressed stemmed from his shock
and disgust, both as a witness to the Turks’ genocidal frenzy and as a
diplomat aware that several Western governments, including his own,
had contributed to the horrors that took place in Smyrna.

The destruction of Smyrna marked the dramatic, fiery climax–although
it would not be the telos–of the Turkish nationalists’ genocidal
project to annihilate the historic Christian populations of Asia
Minor. The mass murder and mass expulsion of the Ottoman Empire’s and
Turkey’s Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks from 1915 to 1923 marked the
twentieth century’s first large-scale and systematic state-directed
genocide, establishing a model that would inspire and be replicated by
other criminal regimes throughout the following century. Moreover, the
Turks’ policy of genocide encouraged imitation elsewhere, precisely
because that holocaust against Christians was astonishingly successful
and without penalties for the perpetrators. Indeed, the Turks not only
achieved their objectives–the slaughter of three million Christians
and the expulsion of another two million from their ancestral homes
did, in fact, produce an essentially homogeneous Muslim Turkey–but
they did so without any consequences, evading all accountability and
any justice.

One of the chief reasons that Turkey escaped responsibility for its
crimes against humanity was the complicity, albeit indirect, of
several of the Western powers in those crimes. During the First World
War, the Allies condemned the Turkish nationalist leadership that
controlled the Ottoman Empire for its acts of genocide. However, once
the war ended, various Western Allied powers (most notably France,
Italy, and the United States), in pursuit of commercial concessions
from the Turks, entered into diplomatic understandings with the
Turkish nationalists, pushed aside and buried the issue of genocide,
and even provided military aid and support to Kemal’s regime, thereby
enabling the founder of the Turkish Republic to complete by 1923 the
bloody “nation-building” project begun by his colleagues in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Despite the duplicitous postwar actions of several Western
governments, popular sentiment in those same societies was deeply
sympathetic to the plight of Christians in the Ottoman Middle East. A
remarkable variety of international relief and aid efforts emerged
throughout the West, especially in the United States, in response to
the humanitarian crisis produced by Turkey’s policy of annihilating
its large Christian population. The extermination and expulsions of
Christians–Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks alike–in Turkey were
widely reported in the United States, producing strident calls by
several prominent diplomats, politicians, influential religious
leaders, scholars, and the press to respond decisively to the crisis
as a moral imperative and a Christian duty. Two years before the US
even entered the war, Americans had answered this call to action by
organizing the highly publicized, nationwide charity that would become
known eventually as Near East Relief, which channeled millions of
dollars in aid to Christian survivors of the genocide.

In sharp contrast to the American public’s outrage over the Muslim
Turks’ extermination of Christians a century ago, the most recent
genocide of Christians in the Middle East by fanatical Muslims, under
the moniker of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has
witnessed a very different response in American society–apathy.

In the year 2014, ISIS launched a reign of terror against Arab and
Armenian Christian populations reminiscent of Turkey’s genocide a
century earlier. As Islamic State forces advanced across the northern
arc of the historic Fertile Crescent (the territory stretching across
northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq), ancient Eastern Christian
communities were decimated. An undetermined number of Christians, many
several thousands, were killed or enslaved by the Islamic State’s
forces in 2014. In order to escape this fate, almost 250,000
Christians fled the areas occupied by the Islamic State. The Islamic
State’s cleansing of the Christian populations under its control
recalls and reiterates the project of nationalist Turkey, one in which
nationalist Islamic forces functioned to create a homogeneous Muslim
society in the territory under their control.

Tragically enough, the erasure of Christians in Iraq and Syria in 2014
is only the most recent episode in the wave of violence and
persecutions against Christians that has been underway since the
fateful United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 catalyzed the state
failures and Islamist extremist mobilizations that are producing
anarchy in the Near East. During the last decade of bloodshed and
chaos in Iraq, and more recently in Syria, perhaps as many as 100,000
Christians have been killed and more than 1.5 million have been made
refugees. As a result, Christianity now faces the possibility of
extinction in the lands of its origin.

The American government’s response to this humanitarian catastrophe
has been characterized by overt indifference. The Bush administration
dealt with the embarrassing fact that its Iraqi misadventure had
unleashed the destruction of the country’s ancient and large Christian
population by ignoring and suppressing that fact. Simultaneously, the
Bush government, either deliberately or through sheer folly,
implemented occupation policies that undermined the security and
prospects for survival of Christian communities in Iraq.

The Obama administration has continued and compounded the fecklessness
of its predecessor administration. Most recently, in an effort to
erase the humiliation produced by his reckless comment made in late
July, that the White House had no policy to deal with the Islamic
State, President Obama rushed to launch a policy initiative in early
August. In a televised national address, President Obama announced
that he had ordered military action against the Islamic State,
rationalizing the move to limited air war in Iraq and Syria by
invoking the US’ moral obligation to protect Iraq’s Yezidi religious
minority from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. The
privations of the Yezidis certainly justified a response and aid, but
the genocide and plight of the much larger Christian communities of
Iraq, brutalized for more than a decade by the region’s mélange of
Islamist extremist groups and actively and passively persecuted by the
Baghdad government, were largely ignored in President Obama’s speech.

The US government’s indifference to the genocide of Christians in the
Middle East is shocking, but, unfortunately, not surprising. The
demonstrated disregard for the suffering of Christians in the Middle
East by the administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama is entirely
consistent with a double standard established by the moralizing
hypocrisy of Woodrow Wilson in the midst of the first genocide of the
twentieth century. In fact, American administrations have been willing
not only to turn a blind eye to genocide against Christians in the
Middle East; they have gone beyond that, by consistently supporting,
at least since the 1980s, Turkey’s genocide denial efforts.

Yet, where is the public outrage? Although the US government has
remained consistent in its indifference and duplicity on this subject,
the attitude of the American public has undergone significant change.
A century ago, the Turks’ genocide against Armenians and other
Christians provoked public outrage and led to large-scale humanitarian
relief efforts in the United States of America. A century ago,
America’s civil society leaders, public intellectuals, and media
mavens actively promoted awareness of the Turks’ crimes against
humanity, and led popular initiatives to rescue Christians from death
and suffering. The invocation in the public sphere of Christian duty
and moral imperatives was sufficient to produce societal concern and
action. In contrast, today, as the Islamic State completes the
destruction of the historic Christian centers that Kemal’s forces did
not reach, the American public’s response is one of apathy. The apathy
is reflected in the measurable lack of public awareness campaigns and
in the absence of activism when it comes to coverage about and support
for the Christian victims of Islamist violence.

The cultural and intellectual currents, as well as official policies,
that have aimed to expunge religion, in general, and Christianity, in
particular, from the American public sphere have been corrosive for
any commitment to respect for faith and, especially, for assigning
value to the survival of Christianity in human civilization. Signs of
America’s emerging a-religious culture has also been instrumental in
explaining public misperceptions about the Middle East as home only to
Muslims and Jews, thereby rendering reporting on Christians in the
Middle East largely incomprehensible or meaningless. In a word, the
cumulative social and cultural changes attendant to the specific
drivers and modes of secularization in America go a long way to
explaining the reasons for American public apathy towards the
annihilation of the Mideast’s Christians. Indeed, the knowledge,
principles, and the very language–“Christian duty,” for example–that
produced widespread outrage and drove humanitarian relief in response
to genocide against Christians a century earlier have no place in
today’s public dialogue, and for some, are viewed as vestiges of an
exclusivist American identity that must be terminated.

The domestic politics of faith and US foreign policy concerns
regarding religion have contributed to a worrying cynicism in how
Washington policymakers engage on the issue of the Middle East’s
disappearing Christians. This past August, President Obama introduced
the Yezidis–a group unknown to Americans, indistinguishable victims,
free from any association with Christianity–to justify limited
military action against the Islamic State. Given current American
political sensitivities towards Islam and social changes generating
ambivalence and hostility towards Christianity, the President (much as
with his predecessor) made no clarion call for action to protect
today’s Middle East Christians–a group whose experiences in the
Ottoman Empire were marked by the same options–pay a poll tax,
convert, flee, or be killed–that face the Yazidis and the Christians
suffering in the ISIS footprint.

This year, 2015, will be a year of centennial remembrance and
commemoration of the Christian–the Armenian, Assyrian, and
Greek–genocide. It will also be a year of genocide denial, already
planned and launched by the Turkish state, as well as by Turkey’s
apologists in the US government, American media, and academia. In
recognition of this tragic centennial, as well as the unfolding
genocide in the Middle East in our time, this blog will return to
these issues in several postings throughout 2015.

Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou is Professor of History at Salem State
University, where he teaches on the Balkans, Byzantium, and the
Ottoman Empire.

The Tower
Jan 7 2015

Study: Jews are Primary Target of Hate in Turkish Media

by TheTower.org Staff | 01.07.15 1:55 pm

Jews are the primary group subjected to hate speech in the Turkish
media, according to a new report published in the Turkish Jewish
newspaper Salom.

The media monitoring report covering news reports and columns
published between May and August 2014 was part of “Monitoring Hate
Speech in Media” research conducted by the Hrant Dink Foundation, a
Turkish non-profit promoting democratic values.

According to the report, in the first four months of 2014, there were
188 articles targeting an ethnic group, of which 130 targeted Jews.
Armenians and Christians were the second- and third-most targeted
groups, respectively. Greeks of Turkish nationality, Kurds and Syrian
refugees were also subjected to hate speech.

Over the following four months, from May to August, the number of
articles containing hate speech that targeted “national, ethnic and
religious groups” rose to 240. This increase was attributed to the
Israel-Hamas armed conflict in the Gaza Strip that occurred in July
and August. The study also noted other troubling trends in media
attacks on Jews.

In media, it was observed that instead of using the terms “State of
Israel”, “Israel”, or “Israeli Defense Forces” in the news regarding
the operation, the terms “Jews” or “Israelis” were used.

The media outlets where hate speech was most detected were Yeni Akit,
Milli Gazete, Milat, Ortadogu and Yeni Çag.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

According to a poll that the Anti-Defamation League released in the
latter half of 2014, 69 percent of Turks harbor anti-Semitic
attitudes. Asked if Jews were more loyal to Israel than to the
countries in which they lived, 69% of respondents replied
affirmatively, and 70% of those surveyed agreed that Jews only cared
about “their own kind.”

Two years ago, when he was prime minister, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism a “crime against humanity.” And
Erdogan’s comments about Israel during the war, including his demands
that the Jewish community denounce Israel, led to criticism from Ira
Forman, the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Combat
Anti-Semitism.

Late last year, a leader of Turkey’s Jewish community lamented that
“we face threats, attacks and harassment every day. Hope is fading….My
generation is also thinking more about leaving this country.”

In The Global Pogrom, which was published in the August 2014 issue of
The Tower Magazine, associate editor Benjamin Kerstein gave an outline
of the predicament facing Turkey’s Jews:

Only in one place in the Muslim world does a substantial Jewish
community survive: Turkey. And it is they who have become the favored
target of the Global Pogrom in the Muslim world itself.
They number only 17,300, but they are a strong and ancient community.
In fact, the Jewish presence in Anatolia precedes Islam by at least
1,000 years, if not more. Yet the Global Pogrom has struck them too,
particularly after the rise of the Islamist AKP party to power, and
the resultant reawakening of publically expressed antisemitism.
Their awakening to the Global Pogrom came early, and it was notably
brutal. In 2003, two synagogues in Istanbul–home to what is by far the
largest Jewish community in the country–were hit by truck bombs. 27
people were killed.
The situation has only grown worse. And in recent weeks, it has
reached a fever pitch, with the AKP and its Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric against Israel and, by
implication, his own Jewish community.

2015 : annus horribilis pour la Turquie ?

Par Jean Varoujean Sirapian –

L’année 2015 s’annonce difficile pour la Turquie. Sur le plan
intérieur et sur le plan extérieur. Dans les deux cas, le Premier
ministre Ahmet Davutoglu sera en première ligne.

Commençons d’abord par les relations internationales. L’année 2015 est
celle du centième anniversaire du génocide du peuple arménien,
planifié et exécuté par le gouvernement des “Jeunes Turcs”. Des
cérémonies, colloques, expositions, ouvrages, films, discours,
articles viendront rappeler partout dans le monde, à ceux qui
l’ignorent encore, ce qu’a été le premier génocide du XXe siècle. Cela
non seulement autour de la date symbolique du 24 avril, mais également
tout au long de l’année. La diaspora arménienne née des rescapés du
génocide qui se sont dispersés sur les cinq continents sera au coeur de
ces commémorations.

Comme cela a été souvent le cas dans le passé, tous ceux qui
entretiennent un contentieux avec la Turquie, ou qu’ils veulent la
flétrir, pour une raison ou pour une autre, s’apprêtent à utiliser la
mémoire du génocide arménien comme un moyen de rétorsion, voire de
punition à l’égard d’un pouvoir désigné comme islamo-conservateur, en
réalité islamo-kémaliste, autrement dit plus ou moins héritier des
errements criminels du Comité Union et Progrès des rangs duquel est
sorti le fondateur de l’actuelle République turque.

Un mur de mensonges contre le déferlement de révélations

Lire la suite, voir lien plus bas

mercredi 7 janvier 2015,
Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

D´autres informations disponibles : sur le Huffington Post ;fr

Study: anti-Semitism most common prejudice in Turkish media

By SAM SOKOL
01/06/2015 20:08

In the study, over half agreed that Jews are responsible for `most of
the world’s wars’ and sixty one percent said that people hate Jews due
to their behavior.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip erdogan.. (photo credit:REUTERS,JPOST STAFF)

Anti-Semitism is the most common racial or religious prejudice found
in the Turkish media, a recent study by the Hrant Dink Foundation
found.

The study, which tracked denigratory coverage of over thirty different
groups in media reports between May and August, found that Jews and
Armenians were the subject just over half of the recorded incidents in
a media landscape filled with `biased and discriminatory language
use.’

Jews led the pack, with 130 incidents, followed by Armenians (60),
Christians (25), Greeks (21), Kurds (18) and Syrian refugees (10).

The report further noted that during coverage of last summer’s
Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, some in the Turkish media did not
differentiate between Jews, Israelis and Zionists, using words like
Jew to refer to all of them indiscriminately.

One example of the conflation of Diaspora Jews and Israelis during the
war, was an article by journalist Faruk Köse in Yeni Akit, a
pro-government newspaper in Istanbul, calling on Turkish Jews to issue
a communal apology on behalf of Israel.

During the conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
harshly condemned by Jewish leaders for calling Israel a `terror
state’ and accusing Jerusalem of perpetrating a `systematic genocide’
against the Palestinians.

Also during the conflict, the head of the Insani Yardım Vakfı (IHH),
the group responsible for the 2010 Gaza flotilla, was reported to have
told Turkish television that `Turkish Jews will pay dearly’ for
Operation Protective Edge.

According to a poll released by the Anti-Defamation League in the
latter half of 2014, sixty nine percent of Turks harbor anti-Semitic
attitudes. Sixty nine percent of respondents replied affirmatively
when asked if Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries in
which they live, while seventy percent of those surveyed agreed that
Jews only care about `their own kind.’

Over half agreed that Jews are responsible for `most of the world’s
wars’ and sixty one percent said that people hate Jews due to their
behavior.

The Turkish Jewish community did not respond to an email request for
comment regarding the media survey.

Turkey’s Jews for the most part kept a low profile during the conflict
as it has a policy of silence when it comes to the press. Some Turkish
emigres have accused Ankara of pressuring communal bodies to toe the
party line.

Over the summer, a group of Turkish Jewish intellectuals unconnected
with the officials communal body did write an open letter to Erdogan
denouncing Israeli actions in Gaza but also decrying the President’s
demands that they make such a declaration because they are Jews.

`In the same way the people of Turkey cannot be held responsible for
the barbarity of what Islamic State does because a number of Turks are
among its fighters, the Jewish community of Turkey cannot be held
responsible for what the state of Israel does,’ they explained,
stating that it is impossible for a community of 20,000 to offer a
unified opinion on any matter.

After this correspondent visited an Istanbul synagogue in 2013,
subsequently publishing an article on the local community’s
preparations to celebrate Israeli independence day, the community
requested through an intermediary that the article be taken offline in
an apparent bid to avoid being linked to Israel in the media.

`The Turkish Jewish community will prefer to keep their mouths shut
because of their public safety, and they are right to do this,’ one
emigre told the Post afterward in explanation.

In the end of December, Turkish Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva spoke at a
gathering of orthodox Rabbis in Jerusalem despite the tensions between
his country and Israel.

LIBAN
Sa Sainteté Aram I en visite au Nid d’Oiseaux

Depuis sa consécration comme Catholicos, Sa Sainteté Aram I rend
visite aux orphelins, aux personnes gées et aux nécessiteux dans les
institutions du Catholicossat à la veille des grandes fêtes de
l’Eglise arménienne. Grce à ses visites et aux contacts personnels,
il vit la diaconie (service aux nécessiteux) de l’ancienne église et
est un exemple pour le jeune clergé.

Le Catholicos a d’abord visité le Nid d’oiseaux, la maison des
enfants, où il a été accueilli par les Soeurs Kayanian, les membres du
Conseil, le directeur et l’école. Après une brève réunion avec eux, il
a rejoint les enfants et a participé à leur programme. À la fin des
présentations des enfants, le Père Noël est arrivé et a distribué des
cadeaux spéciaux pour les enfants. Après avoir partagé la joie des
enfants alors qu’ils ouvraient leurs cadeaux, Sa Sainteté les a bénit
et est retourné à Antélias.

mardi 6 janvier 2015,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

Cinéma
Le Scandale Paradjanov : sortie en salle le 7 janvier

Le 7 janvier, sort en salle le film de Serge Avédikian : Le Scandale
Paradjanov ou La vie tumultueuse d’un artiste soviétique. Je rends
compte ici de ce film lumineux sur un créateur facétieux et
inclassable. J’évoque également ma rencontre à Erevan (Arménie),
quatre ans avant sa mort, avec ce cinéaste censuré et réprimé par le
pouvoir soviétique.

Lorsque l’on croise Serge Avédikian dans le civil, on ne peut imaginer
qu’il interprète Serguei Paradjanov : pourtant la transformation est
stupéfiante, on croit vraiment voir s’animer sous nos yeux de
spectateurs émerveillés l’auteur des Chevaux de feu.

Le récit du film débute à Kiev en 1958 justement lors du tournage des
Chevaux, puis plus tard à Erevan pour Sayat Nova. En 1973, il est
incarcéré en Ukraine, car les autorités cherchent à le détruire grce
à la perversité des zeks (les prisonniers de droit commun). Mais
Paradjanov est un sacré bonhomme. C’est un artiste et il va donner aux
zeks des dessins, des cartes à jouer porno, pour leur plus grande
joie. Du coup, ils vont le protéger. Il tient le coup grce à cette
activité. S’il est emprisonné c’est que les autorités lui reprochent
son homosexualité selon l’article 121 de la Constitution soviétique.

Lire la suite, voir lien plus bas

mardi 6 janvier 2015,
Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

D´autres informations disponibles : sur Mediapart.fr

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Jan 6 2015

Christmas the Armenian way

Justin Salhani| The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Lebanon hasn’t boxed up its Christmas decorations just yet, as
the celebrations are just beginning for some. A large percentage of
Lebanon’s prominent Armenian community celebrates their version of the
holy day Tuesday, Jan. 6.

The sixth is Epiphany for most Christians, but Armenians use the day
to celebrate a culmination of the season’s events.

For them, the sixth is Christmas, celebrating the nativity of Jesus in
Bethlehem, but it also symbolizes Epiphany, when Jesus was baptized in
the Jordan River. Unlike the Orthodox and Protestants who follow the
historic date of Armenian Christmas, the Armenian Catholics, however,
follow the Catholic Church in Rome and celebrate on Dec. 25.

“They go with the [Catholic] pope and with Rome,” Zara Sirop Hagop
said with a slight chuckle. Hagop is one of the local mukhtars in
Beirut’s Burj Hammoud neighborhood.

While large sections of the Lebanese-Armenian population have moved
out of Burj Hammoud over the years and integrated into other areas,
the neighborhood is still strongly connected to the community through
the ubiquity of Armenian restaurants, businesses, cultural centers and
churches.

Christmas decorations are still hung over main thoroughfares, with
white lights dangling in the shape of snowflakes, illuminating the
streets and spreading Christmas cheer. Shops are decorated for the
holiday, with many storefronts painted with the English words “Merry
Christmas.”

“Geographically it is known as an Armenian neighborhood,” Hagop said.
“There are many Armenians but there are also Shiites and Lebanese
Christians, as well as many foreigners moving into the area.”

The reasons Armenians celebrate on the sixth are historical and
traditional. Until the fourth century, the Catholic Church also
celebrated Jesus’ birthday Jan. 6. But as Christianity spread into
Europe, the day was merged with a Roman pagan holiday celebrated Dec.
25.

Today, the Catholic Church celebrates the birth of Christ Dec. 25 and
Epiphany Jan. 6. Armenians, however, decided to stick with the
traditional, historical and “correct” day for celebrating Christmas,
as expressed by one person interviewed by The Daily Star.

Tuesday is a national holiday in Lebanon, meaning shops will be closed
across the country, but in Burj Hammoud most establishments – 90
percent according to the local mukhtar – will stay closed Wednesday as
well, as Armenian Orthodox and Protestants partake in a two-day
celebration.

Taking a break from preparing for the Armenian Orthodox St. Sarkis
Church’s 4 p.m. Mass Monday, 19-year-old Phillipe Jinian told The
Daily Star about some of the customs his community participates in for
Christmas. People will gather and sing hymns for the neighborhood
Monday evening.

Sitting behind his office desk, Hagop said that the midnight carols
bring joy to the community and are paired with music from accordions,
guitars and other instruments. Here, they deliver the story of
Christmas in a musical manner.

“The people go to each building in the neighborhood and sing the story
of Jesus Christ,” Hagop said.

The next day, families come together to celebrate the occasion with
food and holiday spirit.

“We gather and eat together [on Christmas Day],” Jinian said, adding
that it is customary to prepare fish. Other traditional Armenian
Christmas dishes include rice, wheat soup and nevik – a dish made of
green chard and chickpeas. Lebanese Armenians, however, are likely to
include a number of fusion dishes that have culminated from their time
living in and integrating into Lebanese society.

A second Mass is often attended by families on Armenian Christmas Day.
Unlike most Christians in Lebanon, however, the Armenian community
doesn’t stop the party after Christmas.

“We celebrate tomorrow but also the day after tomorrow,” Hagop said,
with a wide smile on his face.

Armenian families take part in a tradition that is unique to their
culture on Jan. 7. They visit cemeteries where their loved ones are
buried. Here, they pray and take the time to remember and spend time
with those who have died.

“In Armenia they go live and spend the whole day there,” Hagop said.
“They eat in the cemetery.”

Hagop said that the celebration in Lebanon is not as extravagant as
those in Armenia, where it is an act that the entire nation takes part
in.

After the day at the cemetery, a Mass is planned for the various
Armenian churches. There are four Armenian Orthodox churches in Burj
Hammoud alone and even more outside. Priests from the various houses
of worship gather with the community to hold a large Mass at Burj
Hammoud’s Nursing Home.

Also unique to the Armenians, Christmas gifts are traditionally doled
out on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31. In Armenia, Christmas Day is more of a
religious holiday therefore the gifts are handed out beforehand.

Chef Raymond Blanc’s Galette des Rois

This remarkably simple dessert is only served once a year to mark
Epiphany, celebrated on Jan. 6. It is the custom to hide two little
figurines or fava beans in the almond cream. The ones who find them
will become the King and Queen for the day and of course have all of
their wishes realized.

INGREDIENTS

For the puff pastry

– 400 grams puff pastry, all butter, ready rolled

For the almond cream

– 75 grams butter, unsalted, at room temperature

– 75 grams icing sugar

– 75 grams Almond, powder

– 1 egg, free range/organic, whole

– 1 egg yolk, free range/organic

– 1 tablespoon dark rum or cognac

COOKING METHOD

Cutting out the circles of pastry

You will get two sheets of pastry – 35 / 22.5 cm in a pack, so cut a
20 cm for the base from one sheet and a 22 cm circle for the top out
of the other sheet; refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour.

Making the almond cream

Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl, whisk all the ingredients
together and mix to a smooth texture; reserve in the fridge.

Making the galette

Spoon the almond cream into the center of the puff pastry reserved for
the base. With a palette knife spread the cream into an even circle
leaving a 2 cm gap from the edge. Brush the beaten egg yolk mixture
around the 2 cm gap and carefully drape the top circle of pastry
neatly on top, press gently to expel all the air and using your thumb
seal the pastry all around the edge. Chill or deep freeze the galette
for 1 hour to firm up the pastry and with a sharp knife, trim the edge
of the galette to an even circle so that it rises evenly.

With the back of a knife crimp the outside edge of the pastry all
around. Here you can use your artistic flair.

Scoring the galette & egg washing

Brush the galette with beaten egg yolk. With the side of a fork or
back of a knife, start from the center of the galette and score a
spiral right up to the edge of the pastry. Repeat this to achieve an
attractive design (if you feel unsure you could just simply crisscross
the top of the galette).

Cooking the Galette

Cook in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Leave it to rest for 5
minutes before serving.