Haaretz: “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.”
Louis Fishman, April 25, 2016-Haaretz
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.
*This article appeared in Haaretz on April 25, 2016. Click here for the link.
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