Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Israel Refuses to Recognize Genocide of Armenian Christians


Israel Refuses to Recognize Genocide of Armenian Christians

By Julio Severo
A very important news about acknowledgment of persecution and genocide of Christians went virtually unnoticed in the mainstream media: The Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) rejected on February a bill that would have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
Protesters in Jerusalem demand Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide
“There is no reason that the Knesset, which represents a nation that went through the Holocaust, shouldn’t recognize the Armenian Genocide and have a remembrance day for it,” said Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party chairman, who sponsored the bill.
“The Israeli leadership diminishes itself by so transparently treating genocide remembrance as a commodity to be bartered with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan,” said Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian, regarding the vote.
The Knesset has discussed the Armenian Genocide several times in the past, but the Israel government has blocked all efforts to recognized it.
Even though Israel has today the most right-wing government coalition in the Israeli history under Benjamin Netanyahu, how will the Israel government be able to recognize the Armenian Genocide if it has been unable even to recognize that abortion, which is legal and fully available in Israel, is genocide?
As a Zionist evangelical Christian, I am a supporter of Israel and, in my view, every nation should recognize the Holocaust, the immense suffering and death Jewish victims went through in the hands of Nazi thugs.
So, because Jews suffered so much and know what genocide is, Israel should be the first nation to recognize the Armenian Genocide, especially because just as there is a denial of the Holocaust, there is also a denial of the Armenian Genocide.
I have been a fighter against the revisionism and denial of the Holocaust and the Inquisition, because both efforts bring dishonor to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the Inquisition.
In the same way, the revisionism and denial of the Armenian Genocide bring dishonor to the Christian Armenian victims of the Armenian Genocide.
Israel has avoided to label the mass slaughter of Christians Armenians genocide because Islamic Turkey does not like to be reminded of its crimes.
Israel is not the only nation seeking not to enrage Turkey.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump marked the Ottoman Turks’ century-old massacre of 1.5 million Armenians, but declined to label it a genocide.
“Today, we remember and honor the memory of those who suffered during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century,” Trump said in a statement. “I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many.”
Such a declaration, even though avoiding the term “genocide” and refusing to mention that the killers were Muslim and the victims were Christian, angered Turkey, only NATO Islamic member and U.S. ally, whose cooperation Trump seeks against the Syrian government.
“We consider that the misinformation and false definitions contained in U.S. President Trump’s written statement of April 24, 2017 regarding the 1915 events are derived from the information pollution created over the years by some Armenian circles in the U.S. by means of propaganda methods,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Previous presidents, including former President Barack Obama, also refused to call the mass killings a genocide. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton avoided the term “genocide” even though they had pledged during their campaigns that they would recognize it as such.
In the same week Trump avoided the term “genocide,” he contacted Turkish President Recep Erdogan to discuss joint U.S.-Turkish counterterrorism efforts. This is very strange, because as an Islamic nation, Turkey does not fight terrorism, especially from ISIS. According to a 2014 WND (WorldNetDaily) report, “Turkey backs ISIS to eliminate Assad.” Israel has also backed Islamic terrorists against Assad.
ISIS has committed genocide against Christians in Syria and Iraq. According to Trump, Obama founded ISIS. And Obama worked closely with Turkey. So if Trump refuses the term “genocide” to please Turkey and has this Islamic nation as an ally against ISIS, is not he helping the ISIS genocide against Christians? To have Islamic Turkey as an ally against Islamic terror is so insane as to have the Nazi Germany as an ally against Nazism or have the Soviet Union as an ally against Soviet Marxism.
Armenia was the first officially Christian nation in the world. Armenia, as a Christian Orthodox nation, is allied with Russia, the largest Christian Orthodox nation in the world.
Because the United States is the largest Protestant nation in the world, Trump could have an alliance with Armenia and Russia against Islamic terrorism, and this was his intent in 2016, but now he is privileging an insane alliance with Islamic Turkey and Saudi Arabia to fight the Islamic terrorism created and supported by Saudi and Turkish Muslims.
If Trump and Israel cannot recognize as genocide the slaughters of Christians by Muslims 100 years ago, how can they recognize current genocides against Christians? How can they recognize that Islam was and is a genocide machine against Christians?
So far, just 23 nations have recognized the Armenian genocide, among them France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Greece, Russia, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and Bolivia.
In 2015 Russian President Putin was the only president of a major power to attend commemorations of 100 years of Armenian Genocide in 1915. The commemorations were held at the Armenian Genocide Memorial on Tsitsernakaberd Hill, in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan, to pay tribute to the genocide victims.
In the occasion, Erdogan was angered at Putin for calling the mass killing of Christian Armenians by Turkish Muslims a genocide. He said, “It’s not the first time Russia used the word genocide on this issue. I’m personally sad that Putin took such a step.”
In the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in 66 towns and 2,500 villages were massacred; 2,350 churches and monasteries were looted, and 1,500 schools and colleges were destroyed.
Yet, Muslims in Turkey and in other nations understate and deny that Armenian Christians suffered a genocide, just as neo-Nazi groups understate and deny the Holocaust against the Jews and ultra-radical Catholics understate and deny the Inquisition against the Jews and Protestants.
Israel knows what denial and revisionism have done to minimize the Holocaust and the Inquisition and their victims. So why has Israel refused to recognize the Armenian Genocide?
Why does Israel seek to please the perpetrator (Islamic Turkey) and does not side with its victim (Armenian Christians)?
The answer comes from Armenians themselves. The Armenian newspaper Asbarez, in a report titled “Israeli Politicians Must Stop Using the Armenian Genocide Card,” said,
“Every time the Turkish regime does something to anger Israel, the Jewish state’s politicians and members of parliament threaten Ankara with the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, furthering their cowardice as a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
“For a state that never misses an opportunity to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust, Israel has had a hard time reconciling its respect for human rights and the losses suffered by Jews with the fact of the Armenian Genocide.
“Israel must recognize the Armenian Genocide not because it’s politically expedient, but because it is a historic fact. By not recognizing it, Israel continues to amplify its own hypocrisy by becoming complicit in its denial.”
With information from Jerusalem Post, WND (WorldNetDaily), Armenian Weekly, Asbarez and Armen Press.
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