And just to add some fuel to the fire of the previous debate, here's some 
excellent stuff from Portside about holocaust denial.

Jon Cloke


Jews Face the Armenian Genocide

(Agrandir) By Dr. Stephen Scheinberg

Dr. Scheinberg is emeritus professor of history,
Concordia University, and co-chair of Canadian Friends
of Peace Now. His editorials can be heard on Montreal's
Radio Shalom 1650AM on Monday at 7:15A.M. and Wednesday
at 6:14P.M..

There is a controversy raging among American Jews which
may get even hotter in the coming days. The issue
arises because the U.S. Congress will once again be
asked to vote for a bill recognizing the Armenian
genocide of 1915. One might think that this would not
be a difficult issue for the Jewish community but
unfortunately several of the major Jewish organizations
in the United States have seen fit to intervene against
the bill.

First, let me explain to those of you who are not well
acquainted with the events of 1915 that an overwhelming
number of historians recognize that the Turkish
government of the day engaged in the pre-meditated
murder of between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians. Jewish
holocaust scholars including Raul Hilberg, Elie
Wiesel, Yehuda Bauer, Daniel Goldhagen and Deborah Lipstadt
have all signed ads urging the Congress to pass the
resolution. The scholarship is overwhelming; including
even some Turkish writers, but the Turkish government
persists in its refusal to acknowledge responsibility.
Armenian genocide denial is close kin to holocaust
denial and as morally reprehensible.

The current bill in the Congress was introduced in
January 2007 by Representative Adam Schiff of
California and has wide Jewish support in both the
House and Senate, from Democrats and Republicans.
However, it is not clear if or when the bill will come
to a vote. The Turkish government has been active in
supporting opposition to the bill, hiring prominent
lobbyists and meeting with Jewish leaders. This
leadership was obviously reminded, at a meeting with
the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdula Gul, of Turkey's
good relations with Israel as well as with the United
States, her support for her own Jewish community
numbering approximately 40,000, and her record as a
sanctuary for Jewish refugees over the centuries. It is
difficult to say whether it was Turkish lobbying, their
own sentiments, or possibly direct intervention from
Israel which led the Anti-Defamation League, B'nai
Brith International, the American Jewish Committee and
the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs to
pass along to members of Congress a letter from Turkish
Jews opposing the resolution, thus implicitly taking
the side of Turkey.

It was the ADL's Abraham Foxman who was the most
outspoken of the Jewish leaders, declaring that "this
is an issue that needs to be resolved by the parties,
not by us. We are neither historians nor arbiters." One
has never heard Foxman, a child survivor of the
holocaust, make such a cavalier reference to the death
of six million Jews. He has given further fuel to his
critics by firing the ADL's New England regional
director who had urged that the organization recognize
the genocide. A former ADL regional board member
condemned the firing as "a vindictive, intolerant, and
destructive act" by an organization and leader whose
"fundamental mission - is to promote tolerance." Foxman
has subsequently, following much criticism and a
conversation with Elie Wiesel, recognized that the
events of 1915 constituted genocide but continues to
oppose the bill as counterproductive.

For her part, Israel has not made any public reference
to the Armenian genocide and has carefully deleted such
references from text books and even withdrawn support
from international conferences at which the genocide
would have been a subject for discussion. Before a trip
to Turkey then-foreign minister Shimon Peres said of
the genocide, that it was "a matter for historians to
decide." There are many prominent Israelis who deplore
their government's failure to act on a significant
moral issue. However, in the case of a nation state,
realpolitik often triumphs over morality. Israel
obviously considers that her relations with Turkey are
too important to be possibly undermined by taking the
moral road, though Israelis from across the political
spectrum have disagreed on the consequences of such
actions.

Nevertheless, the American Jewish leadership is not and
should not be tied to Israeli realpolitik. Individual
morality cannot be waived in the interest of Israel,
the United States or Canada. Perhaps if the Armenian
genocide resolution is again defeated these same
community leaders will be at pains to deny the
influence of the Jewish lobby. Neither Israel nor the
American Jewish community will be well served by a
community leadership that abandons elementary standards
of behavior for a misguided assessment of the needs of
Israel or Turkish Jewry. Perhaps they should recall the
infamous words attributed to Adolph Hitler, calling on
his troops to pursue their destructive work, he stated:
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of
the Armenians?" As Jews, we are obliged to speak, and
our voices must be heard on the side of justice and
morality.


* Credit : Wikipedia - The Armenian Genocide Memorial
in the Marcelin-Wilson Park in Montreal.


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===
2.
  Turkey and the Armenians / Today's denial is
  tomorrow's holocaust By Yossi Sarid

  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912094.html

  Congressman Adam Schiff, who proposed the resolution
  to name the Armenian massacre a genocide, is Jewish.
  The Jewish nation should be grateful for Schiff's
  initiative, for he has saved Jewish honor in America,
  Israel and everywhere. He restored our humane image,
  in contrast to the cynics and genocide deniers who are
  forever demanding payment for being perpetual victims.

  Congressman Schiff is following in the footsteps of
  another Jew, Henry Morgenthau, who served as U.S.
  ambassador in Turkey in those days. He called the
  massacre "the greatest crime in modern history."
  Advertisement

  Schiff is also the student of another Jew, Franz
  Werfel, who on his way to the Land of Israel stopped
  in Damascus and was appalled to see "the starving,
  mutilated and sick Armenian refugee children." He
  published the novel "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh"
  (1933), which shocked the world.

  In 1918 Shmuel Talkovsky, then secretary of Haim
  Weizmann, wrote with Weizmann's approval: "Is there
  any nation whose fate is more similar to ours than the
  Armenians?"

  But in Israel today there are Jews who are less than
  Jewish and Zionists who are less than Zionist -
  including heads of state and heads of government.
  Denying another nation's Holocaust is no less ugly
  than denying ours. It is also dangerous. Today's
  denial is tomorrow's Holocaust. The Armenian genocide
  wasn't the first in this era. The German imperial army
  slaughtered 100,000 Namibians in 1904. In 1915, the
  Armenian genocide began; the Ottomans killed 1.5
  million of them in various ways. If the world had
  risen up in protest against the genocide of the
  Namibians and Armenians, the Holocaust of the Jews
  might also have been averted. This is not a mere
  assumption; it's probably a fact. A week before
  invading Poland, Hitler addressed his officers (August
  24, 1939): "It's a matter of indifference to me what a
  weak western European civilization will say about me
  ... I have ordered my Death-Head Formation to kill
  mercilessly and without compassion men, women and
  children of Polish derivation and language. Who, after
  all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
  Armenians?"

  Such was Hitler's calming message to his troops.

  The next time some Israel hater - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
  for example - denies the Jewish Holocaust, and we
  raise a hue and cry about it, there will be some
  self-righteous Gentiles ready to say, "You're right,
  but we have our own Turkeys."

  As natural and historic victims, we should be the ones
  to spread the message from one end of the world to
  another: what happened to us can happen again, to us
  and to the people of Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Sudan,
  Burma.

  There is no need to compare between holocausts to
  recognize other nations' suffering.

  ===

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