Morgenthaus vs. Genocide
Opinion
By Rafael Medoff
Robert Morgenthau’s announcement that he will retire after more than three decades as Manhattan’s district attorney caps an impressive career in law enforcement. With his latest case, against banks illegally aiding the governments of Iran and Sudan, three generations of Morgenthaus have now confronted perpetrators of genocide — which is as tragic a commentary on the persistence of human rights abuses in modern times as it is a tribute to a remarkable family that has fought those abuses.
It began with Robert Morgenthau’s grandfather. A lawyer and realtor in turn-of-the-century Manhattan, Henry Morgenthau Sr. was an unlikely crusader for human rights. His life took a surprising turn when his support for the long-shot presidential candidacy of Woodrow Wilson was rewarded with the post of American ambassador to Turkey.
Under the cover of World War I, the Turkish authorities embarked on a campaign of mass murder against their Armenian citizens. Morgenthau’s desperate cables to Washington about this “attempt to exterminate a race” — relaying details of the wholesale deportations, massacres and rapes — are among the most important evidence of the atrocities.
The ambassador persuaded The New York Times and other news media to report on the “race murder,” as he called it; he inspired charity groups to raise relief funds for the survivors. But the Wilson administration, anxious to remain neutral in the war, rebuffed Morgenthau’s appeals to intervene. Morgenthau resigned in frustration in early 1916.
While Morgenthau was unable to save the Armenians, his example has stood as a beacon to generations of activists determined to stop genocide. Morgenthau’s experience fills the opening section of Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” Now a senior foreign policy adviser to President Obama, Power regards “the American nonresponse to the Turkish horrors” as “establishing patterns that would be repeated” throughout the ensuing century. Power, according to recent media reports, is now attempting to break the pattern by urging active American intervention against the genocide in Darfur.
Two decades after Henry Morgenthau Sr. resigned his post as ambassador, a twist of fate put his son in a position to act against genocide. As the proprietor of apple orchards in New York’s Dutchess County, Henry Morgenthau Jr. became friends with his neighbor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1934, Roosevelt named him secretary of the treasury.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Treasury Department would not deal with matters affecting Jews in Hitler’s Europe, but in 1943 Jewish groups asked the department for permission to send funds into Axis territory to ransom Jews. The State Department’s attempt to stall the rescue plan aroused the ire and curiosity of a senior Morgenthau aide named Josiah DuBois. His investigations revealed that the State Department had been suppressing news of the Holocaust and sabotaging rescue opportunities so America would not have to deal with what one official called “the burden and the curse” of having to care for refugees.
In early 1944, Morgenthau confronted Roosevelt with the evidence and urged him to create a government agency to rescue Jews. Just then, leading members of Congress, galvanized by the activist Bergson Group, were pressing the president to establish such an agency. The pressure convinced a reluctant Roosevelt to create the War Refugee Board. During the final 15 months of the war, the board helped save an estimated 200,000 Jews.
Like his father and grandfather, Robert Morgenthau chose a career path that one would not expect to embroil him in international affairs. As Manhattan’s district attorney since 1975, Morgenthau prosecuted the usual array of criminals, from muggers to Mafia bosses to white-collar swindlers.
Last month, however, Morgenthau announced the results of what is perhaps his most important investigation: His office caught 10 major international banks laundering “billions of dollars” for Iran and Sudan. Part of the money purchased goods that international sanctions prevent Tehran and Khartoum from acquiring. Some of the money was channeled to terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Ironically, Morgenthau’s bank investigators have been collaborating with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — the same office that, under the direction of Josiah DuBois, his father worked with during the Holocaust.
Three generations of Morgenthaus were unexpectedly thrust into the international arena and rose to the challenge. Henry Sr. exposed the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. Henry Jr. helped interrupt the Nazi genocide. Now the Sudanese regime that is carrying out genocide in Darfur and the Iranian regime that dreams of genocide against Israel are facing their own Morgenthau. The family’s legacy has come full circle.
Rafael Medoff is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and the author of “Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. and the Struggle for a U.S. Response to the Holocaust” (Purdue University Press, 2008).
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You should be aware of a highly organized effort to castigate the victimized Armenians of 1915 and of today in exactly the same language Rosenthal, Goebbels, and the racist architects of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides used. Read, for example the Nazi ravings of Southern California Turkish Forum columnist Ergun Kirlikovali, who has joked about the deaths of Armenians as comparable to the deaths of vermin and flies. He has written that only 8,000 Armenian died, and that most deserved it. He regularly uses Hitlerian language to describe the victims of 1915 and today; they are and were "backstabbers" "liars" "murderers" and "traitors". Google his name, and read it for yourself. Kirlikovali almost daily uses the language anti-semites use; he recently insulted American Armenians, saying they are disloyal, and cannot serve in the military honorably; and that a majority of them want to kill Turks on sight.
Unfortunately, Kirlikovali is a national officer of Turkish American organizations who seek daily to enlist Jewish American groups to deny the Genocide of the Christians of Anatolia.
Here is what Kirlikovali wrote about Ambassador Morgenthau in one of nine sample ghostwritten letters he wanted his fellow Genocide-deniers to send California elected officials in opposition to commemorating the Genocide of Armenians:
"Then there is the case of the American Ambassador Morgenthau, a rabid anti-Turk, who was frequently used as a credible source. Morgenthau posed as a career diplomat and a historian, but he was neither. He was a real estate agent and a developer from upstate New York who raised the most funds for the Wilson campaign in 1912 and was rewarded with an ambassadorial post by the president elect Wilson. His male Armenian interpreter and secretaries ghost wrote all his letter and reports home and Morgenthau never ventured into Anatolia’s hinterland to investigate the outrageous Armenian claims. He just rubber-stamped stories and reports filed by the Armenian nationalists and/or American missionaries, hardly unbiased sources, no matter how embellished, exaggerated, or distorted those stories and reports were."
http://Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/04/2414-no-tosjr-26-by-ergun.html
Of course, the most serious things Morgenthau wrote were direct quotations of Talaat Pasha, who admitted to him his intention to exterminate the Armenians, and who asked Morgenthau to help get the victims' life insuramce benefits payable to the Ottoman State, saying the policyholders' beneficiaries were all dead or nearly so. Memorable other quotes include Talaat's statement that Morgenthau, as a Jew, should care nothing about annihalation of Christian subjects. Kirlikovali and the other statist deniers attack Morgenthau's character daily, saying that he was unwilling to give accurate reports in good faith to the IUnited States Department of State.
correction: this is where
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/04/2414-no-to-sjr-24-sjr-26-by-ergun.html
1 The Armenians are sure that Armenian genocide really occured and claim that Turkey does not want to face with her history. On the other hand, they persistently refuse Turkey’s suggestions to discuss these events together with historians from both sides, in spite of this claim. For example:
*In 2004, the Viennese Armenian-Turkish Platform (VAT) was founded to exchange documents about the 1915 events by Austrian, Turkish and Armenian historians. After receiving 100 Turkish documents, the Armenians refused to send their documents which they promised, to the Turkish historians and afterwards the Armenian foreign minister announced that they did not want to discuss the 1915 events with historians.
*Armenia refused the Turkish prime minister's and the Turkish Assembly's invitation announced on April 13, 2005 which suggested to establish a Joint Commission composed of historians from both sides and discuss the events which took place during the 1st World War.
*Turkey sent full page ads to five popular newspapers of the United States (US) calling on Armenia to ‘bring light the events of 1915 together with Turkey and to establish a joint commission composed of historians from both sides in addition to historians from other nations’, in April 2007.
*And the Turkish prime minister repeated the same invitation on February 2008 , in Munich at the 44th Security Conference where the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Oskanian also attended? In neither of these invitations was there any precondition, unlike it is claimed by the Armenians.
*Why did the Armenian historian Sarafyan, who accepted the invitation of the then chief of Turkish History Foundation, Halacoglu, for cooperation to investigate Harput events, abandon the project, after talking the Armenian diaspora?
*The Ottoman and Turkish archives are open, unlike it is claimed by the diaspora. http://www.ankara.edu.tr/english/yazi.php?yad=36. http://www.tsk.mil.tr/ENGLISH/8_FRAGMENTS_FORM_HISTORY/8_1_Armenian_Issues/issues/Armenian_Activities_in_the_Archive_Documents/Armenian_Activities_in_the_Archive_Documents.html; http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents2.pdf; http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents3.pdf; http://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/kitap/kitap.asp?kitap=991. Even, Armenian historian Ara Sarafian from Gomitas Institute and Hilmar Kaiser searched the Ottoman archives (www.sarigelinbelgeseli.com)
2 *In spite of this, why are the Armenian archives including the one in Zoryan Armenian Institute in Boston closed? Both Turkish government and Turkish History Foundation offered the Armenians to open these archives; but the directors of the Zoryan Institute replied that they did not have enough money to open the archives. Turkish government and Turkish History Foundation promised financial support.Why did the Armenians refuse this suggestion too? (Nüzhet Kandemir, http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/418517.asp).
Note that Zoryan Institute has quite enough money to provide financial support for Taner Akçam who advocated the Armenian claims while working in Minnesota University until recently.
Why are the Armenians terribly afraid of establishment of historical joint commissions (See the news entitled ‘RA foreign minister didn’t say Armenia agrees to form commission of historians’ on November 26, 2008 in Panarmenian and ‘Dashnaks warn Sarkisian over Armenian genocide study’ on July 9, 2008 in Armenia Liberty; http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/august_2004/history001.html
Is it not striking that Sarafian, the head of the London-based Gomidas Institute, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s offer to Armenia to establish a commission of historians to resolve the Armenian issue was positive, but Armenia was the wrong address. He also said that freedom of expression for historians in Armenia is limited and the genocide issue has become a political tool. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/10426989.asp?scr=11
If a genocide had really occured, why did Brian Ardouny of the Armenian Assembly of America announce ‘We don’t need to prove the genocide historically, because it has already been accepted politically’? Why did the chief of the Armenian Archives in Armenia tell that they were not interested in the archives, but all they are interested was the world’s public opinion.
In your life, have you ever seen a criminal who persistently calls the victim to bring his evidences? And, have you ever seen a victim who passionately accuses somebody of committing crime and giving him great harm but strictly avoids of bringing his proofs before the referees or going to court, and tells that he need not prove that person’s guilt, because the community has already accepted him as guilty? In this situation would you not ask if you are living in 5000 BC?
What else should the Turks do to face with their history? Is it Turkey/Turks or Armenia and those who support them who are terribly afraid of facing with their history?
1. The Armenians try to consider the death of Armenians in WWI, as an equivalent of Jewish Holocaust. There is not any similarity:
Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, which was proven before the Nuremburg Tribunal with the trappings of due process, there has been no kind of court decision about what the Armenians call a ‘genocide’ nor has the Armenians ever applied to any court. Moreover, International Court of Justice or domestic courts are the only authorities reserved to prosecute and proclaim genocide according to the 1948 UN Convention. Therefore, the Armenian allegation of genocide lacks evidence and legal support.
I call the readers of the forum to ask themselves these questions: Did the Jews urge the parliaments to pass resolutions to recognize that the events which took place in WWII were genocide? Did they bargain with the politicians of the country they live, to write their history and pass resolutions as they wished it to have been in exchange of Jewish votes?
Did the Jews close their archives and prevent the historians from making research?
Did the Jews threaten the historians, sue them or bomb their houses to prevent them talking all the details about their history, like the Armenians did? (www.sarigelinbelgeseli.com;http://209.232.239.37/gtd1/ViewIncident.aspx?id=56624 http://turkishweekly.net/comments.php/id2418/top/comments.php?id=594, http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/69histors-charny.htm, http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/intimidate.htm)
Did the Jews get frightened to discuss these events with all the historians of the world like the Armenians have been doing? (See the news entitled ‘RA foreign minister didn’t say Armenia agrees to form commission of historians’ on November 26, 2008 in Panarmenian and the news entitled ‘Dashnaks warn Sarkisian over Armenian genocide study’ on July 9, 2008 in Armenia Liberty; and also see http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/august_2004/history001.html) Did the Jews establish outlawed terrorist organizations like ASALA, JCAG (Justice Commandos for Armenian Genocide) and ARA (Armenian Revolutionary Army) and did they perform dozens of murders and hundreds of terrorist activities, to introduce their thesis to the public, like the Armenians did?
(http://www.ataa.org/reference/topalian/VIS6_Berkoz_Affidavit.pdf; Michael M. Gunter, 'Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People': A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism, Wesport-New York, Greenwood Press, 1986, p. 74; Gunter Lewy, 'Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People:' A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism, pp. 99-100).
2 Also, it is of note that the Armenians presented many other forgeries and lies http://www.ataa.org/reference/forgeries-delen.html, http://www.ataa.org/reference/andonian-ataov.html) Did the Jews attempt to make forgeries in documents? No. They attempted to make none of them except applying to the International Courts.
You, the Armenıans claım that Internatıonal Scholars of Genocıde approve your thesıs. Then, why dıd you not feel your evıdences powerful enough and why dıd you use fake photoes, fake documents and lıes? Why are you afraıd of sımply applyıng to the Internatıonal court of justıce, ınstead of spendıng huge amounts of money to make the propaganda of your thesıs?
The issue is the unique contribution of the Morgenthau family, and the Turkish American establishment's ongoing villification of Ambassador Morgenthau, claiming as Kirlikovali did, above, that he was a bigot, and an incompetent, with even a whisper of a sexual issue to boot ["his male Armenian secretaies and interpreter"]. Any voice, Turkish, Armenian. Greek, Assyrian, Kurdish or Arab, not to mention American, European, or other is immediately villified.
Odd that Akasya supports the idea of a Commission, as if this would be a neutral fact-finder. For it to work, scholars must be free. In Turkey they are either state servants or live in fear. We know that a Turkish citizen who says there was a genocide [or even mass deaths]is killled by the deep state [Hrant Dink], prosecuted by the state [Pamuk, Safak], defamed and physically threatened [Akcam] and abused daily in the press as a "traitor" [all of the above, plus Baskin Oran, Zaragolu, Gocek]. American scholars once supported by the Institute for Turkish Studies [a Turkish government operation]who conclude that there was a Genocide are immediately told by the Turkish state to recant or lose their funding [Donald Quataert]. Former Turkish diplomats who merely say a word of kindness to Armenians are accused of corruption [Vural].
We also know that the Turkish state daily seeks to manipulate scholars and scholarship [read Donald Quataert's 2007 review of Donald Bloxham's book on the Genocide], not to mention Lewy's description of the Turkish state's efforts to suppress and destroy free inquiry][see also Heath Lowry's infamous letter to the Turkish Ambassador advising him how to respond to Norman Jay Lifton and Vahakn Dadrian]. Today, the same efforts to shape, pervert and censor scholarship are alive and well, as at the University of Utah. In such an environment, a 'Commission" is merely a propaganda opportunity to credit denial of the Genocide with credibility.
The atmosphere of anti-semitism and anti-Armenianism in Turkey is worse than it has been in decades, since the pogroms and state-sponsored murders of Christians and Jews of 1955. Minorities live in fear. Racism is so pervasive and casual that a member of Parliament, Canan Aritman, accused the President of Turkey of having an Armenian mother recently, as if it is an insult, which of course it is. In Turkey today, calling someone Armenian is a casual insult.
Darfur and our future. Emanuel Tanay M.D. Human resourcefulness enabled our species to become the masters of the planet. It also gave us the power to commit global suicide. The American moon landing evoked a collective response in people throughout the world. It was “a giant step forward for mankind.” Every genocide is a giant step backward, an event of global psychosocial dimensions. Groups, societies, and the whole humanity are engaged in a race between capacity to destroy and capacity to control aggression. When remote tribes practiced cannibalism, the civilized world was aghast but not in danger. When the so-called “rogue” States acquire atomic weapons the whole globe is at risk. In the psychosocial evolution of Homo Sapiens, cannibalism and incest became taboo and are nearly extinct. Genocide to promote ideology or religion has to join these sacrosanct prohibitions. We are too powerful to pursue armed conflicts that can lead to humanicide. Ideology, technology and bureaucracy are the backbone of our civilization. The Holocaust was made possible by the collaboration of ideology, death-technology and bureaucracy .
Part 1
Now, let us concentrate on the attitute of the Armenians towards the scholars or people who do not support their thesis:
The home of American Professor Stanford Shaw of the University of California-Los Angeles was firebombed in retaliation for his academic courage in disputing the Armenian genocide claim, in 1977
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/16/armenian-crime-amnesia/ http://209.232.239.37/gtd1/ViewIncident.aspx?id=56624 Sixty nine academicians who specialized in Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies from 44 different American universities and colleges published a declaration in The New York Times on May 19, 1986 and declared: …….No signatory of this statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in the direction of serious inter-communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces), complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres in Anatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War. Indeed, throughout the years in question, the region was the scene of more or less continuous warfare, not unlike the tragedy which has gone on in Lebenon for the past decade. The resulting death toll among both Muslim and Christian communities of the region was immense. But much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population, Christian and Muslim alike………… the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is much debated among scholars, many of whom do not agree with the historical assumptions embodied in the wording of H.J.Res.192. ….Such a resolution, based on historically questionable assumptions, can only damage the cause of honest historical enquiry, and damage the credibility of the American legistlative process.
The producers of the ‘historical documentary film Sarı Gelin (www.sarigelinbelgeseli.com) suggested to interview some of these academicians. However they were rejected because these academicians and their families were threatened by the Armenians, via telephone calls and letters, in 1986 for signing this declaration. Justin McCarthy’s family had to get police protection. Prof. McCarthy himself was threatened with losing his job if he continued his research. http://turkishweekly.net/comments.php/id2418/top/comments.php?id=594, http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/69histors-charny.htm, http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/intimidate.htm
Part 2 The Armenians sued Bernard Lewis, the French historian famous for his Middle Eastern and Ottoman studies, in France, in 1993 just because he wrote in Le Monde that 'the 1915 events were not ‘genocide’. American judge Samuel Weems’s life was threatened by the Armenians since he published his book ‘A terrorist State: Armenia’.
In Netherlands, Turkish origined party members who told that they did not agree with the Armenian thesis were discharged from the party, because of the pressure of the Armenian voters of the country. Additionally, Turkish university students studying in the USA are under threat of Armenian students, just because they reject the Armenian claims. In some universities it reaches to such an extreme point that one young university student needs police escort.
'Oath of Asala' which is a branch of Asala declared that they would spare GAKAVYAN's life in case he abandoned this apology project and disclosed the names of the people who urged him to do so, according to the Armenian newspaper "Azg",http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalHaberDetay&ArticleID=921474&Date=14.02.2009&CategoryID=98.
The petition of Dr. Armen Gavakian from the Macquarie University in Sydney, who is also co-chair of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue Group would read "I apologize to the Ottomans and Turks for murders committed in the name of the Armenian people and I empathize with the feelings and pain of the Ottomans and Turks." http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/10904739.asp
Recently, French Jack Lang who was one of the strongest supporters of 2001’s Armenian bill in French parliament, and was head of the then Parliamentary Foreign Relations Commission said he had voted against a controversial bill adopted by the French parliament making it a crime to deny recognition of 1915 incidents as “genocide”, because the action was abused for election interests.
"The denial bill was passed with the aim of an election investment, not because they understood the pains of Armenians. Accordingly it is dangerous that history is made by politicians," he said.
The Armenian diaspora in France directed fierce criticism at Lang over his recently published remarks. Soon afterwards, he declared that he has not changed its position and continues to fight for that worldwide genocide of the Armenian people is recognized, and especially in Turkey. http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/01/2729-armenian-tuggery-intimidation-in.html, http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/02/03/genocide-armenien-le-mea-culpa-de-jack-lang-enflamme-le-net_1150313_3224.html
Part 3
At present, saying what happened in 1915 is not genocide could be life threatening in Republic of Armenia. Imagine giving a conference with Turkish academicians there. And did you hear any Armenian who attempted to hold a conference advocating that Armenian genocide did not occur, in Armenia?
Even Armenian historian Sarafian, the head of the London-based Gomidas Institute, said "Freedom of expression for historians in Armenia is limited and the genocide issue has become a political tool and for historical investigations Armenia is a wrong address . http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/10426989.asp?scr=1.
It is a fact that even books written by Armenian leaders and historians which criticize the Armenian Dashnaks like the book of Katchaznouni, the first prime-minister of the Armenian state, Dashnagzoutiun Has Nothing to do Anymore, the book of K.S.Papazian ‘Patrionism Perverted’ are banned in Armenia. In spite of all these facts, the Armenians and the Western and biased journalists continuously attack the Turks, claiming that the Armenian thesis can not be discussed in Turkey, since freedom of speech is absent.
Could anybody tell me, if Armenian thesis were banned in Turkey, then how could Armenian historian Ara Sarafyan give a conference on the thesis of Armenian genocide in İstanbul and discuss them with the Turkish citizens? http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=102831
Part 4
If all the historians who do not support the Armenian thesis were people hired by the Turkish government, and if the Turkish government pays historians if and only if they support the Turkish thesis, as claimed by the Armanian diaspora, then how has Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish origined scholar who supports the Armenian thesis been able to be a board member of the Institute of Turkish Studies financed by Turkish government in Georgetown University, Columbia (http://www.turkishstudies.org/about.html)?
How could she give conferences supporting the Armenian views up till now? She is the second Turkish origined academician the Armenians approve after Taner Akçam
http://www.armeniangenocide.com/showthread.php?t=2471 http://www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=tr&Page=Makaleler&MakaleNo=3008 (Can you imagine Taner Akçam, who advocated the Armenian claims in Minnesota University up till now and was financed by Zorian Armenian Institute as confirmed by the university authorities, give conferences against the Armenian thesis?)
And as a most important point, Turkish historians, Turkish prime minister and Turkish Assembly several times suggested Armenia to discuss these events together with historians from both sides and historians from other countries. Everybody in Turkey knows very well that those who advocate the Armenian thesis most passionately are the Armenians themselves. Could anybody tell me again if Turkey was a place where Armenian thesis were banned, then why did Turkish prime minister and Turkish Assembly several times call on Armenia to discuss these events with whoever they choose?
No wisdom can overlook this hypocrisy of Armenians and their supporters.
zekiye=ergun kirlikovali, whose attack on Morgenthau is posted above.
zekiye=ergun kirlikovali, whose attack on Morgenthau is posted above.
Armenian Genocide is a historical fact.
I urge Forward readers to visit Turkish Forum on the web to see what this statist site has done with the Medoff piece. They reproduced it under a headline implying that it was being published as a punishment for Erdogan's Davos outburst. Then they reproduced another article villifying Morgenthau beneath it, which throws in some stock anti Armenian passages for good measure. Apparently they are unwilling to say anti Semitic or anti Armenian things on Forward's web blog, but are happy to promote a belief that the authors of Forward take orders from Israel among themselves.
I urge Forward readers to visit Turkish Forum on the web to see what this statist site has done with the Medoff piece. They reproduced it under a headline implying that it was being published as a punishment for Erdogan's Davos outburst. Then they reproduced another article villifying Morgenthau beneath it, which throws in some stock anti Armenian passages for good measure. Apparently they are unwilling to say anti Semitic or anti Armenian things on Forward's web blog, but are happy to promote a belief that the authors of Forward take orders from Israel among themselves.
Let us reevaluate Armenia’s persistence on the word ‘genocide’ from a different perspective: Armenia’s attitude towards Turkey’s land integrity: Article 13 (second paragraph) of Armenian constitution declares the ‘Ağrı Mountain’ in the Eastern Anatolia of Turkey, as the state symbol of Armenia . Article 11 of the Armenian Declaration of Independence of August 23, 1990; refers to Eastern Anatolia of Turkey as Western Armenia and as such beholds that this area is part of Armenia. Since the Armenian constitution recognizes as a basis “the fundamental principles of the Armenian statehood and national aspirations engraved in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia”, it likewise accepts the characterization of Eastern Anatolia as Western Armenia and this, albeit indirectly, translates into the advancement of territorial claims. The Armenian politicians and school books call Eastern Anatolia of Turkey, ‘invaded mother land of Armenia’ and in Armenia the school children are being grown up being conditioned to be patriots to rescue their invaded land. Even the marches they sing are about this condition. The Armenians who write in such blogs that the Eastern Anatolia cities do not belong to Turkey, as if the present Eastern boundaries of Turkey was not determined by treaties of Gumru (1920), Moscow (1921) and the whole boundaries by Lausanne (1923) Treaties; after the Turkish Freedom War.
Armen Aivazyan, Director of Ararat Center of Strategic Studies, told a news conference that Armenia must never renounce its territorial claims to Turkey http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=28877
Additionally Armenia refused Turkey’s recurrent offers to commit an agreement declaring that each country recognizes the other country’s land integrity, in 1992 and later.
Why do the Armenians force Turkey to accept a genocide? The answer is hidden in a speech of the chief of Dashnak Party Hrant Markaryan who told that their efforts for the recognition of Armenian (so-called) genocide was not an isolated purpose but it was a part of the struggle for rescue of the West Armenia (Armenian Forum Vol2 No 4; Armenian Weekly On-line, 18 June, 4 July 2003). The Armenian then prime minister Andranik Markaryan told that the internationally recognition of (so called) Armenian genocide and demanding land from Ankara as 'compensation' was possible only after Armenia had strengthened and the Armenians should not have told that they demanded land from Ankara loudly and everywhere (Arminfo 26 May 2004). On one occasion President Kocharian stated that since today’s Armenia does not have the clout to advance such demands, doing so should be left to future generations at a time when conditions would hopefully be better suited to this end'. A poll taken in Armenia revealed that almost all youngsters in the Republic of Armenia wished to follow up with land claims from Turkey and 90% of them said Turkey must unequivocally accept genocide allegations (Milliyet - April 11, 2006).
The world should not forget that Germany's claim on Zudetland and Gdansk just because they were its historical lands caused burst of World War II! History is full of wars which broke up because of claims of states on their historical lands.
Yet, there are obvious evidences showing that the Armenians did not constitute the majority of the population in neither of the Ottoman provinces which the Armenians call Western Armenia and the Muslim population was 3 to 8 times more than that of the Armenian's (Ottoman Population Statistics 1890 and 1914).
If an item like the aforementioned Armenian item were present in the lawbook of Mexico claiming that Texas, Arizonna, New Mexico and California which were historical lands of Mexico, belonged to Mexico but invaded, would the American tolerate it?
Therefore the world should not overlook Armenia’s aggressivity, which is hidden behind their role of victim and should think about the price of their support to the Armenians very well.
So, the most important question which should be asked now is whether the world politicians, journalists and supporters of human rights will go on falling within the scope of Armenian propagandists and go on being major advocates of Armenian aggressivity, while pursuing humanist missions or not!
The claim that Armenians assert Genocide, along with virtually every historian, to make territorial claims is false. The claim -the assertion - is made because of the cumulative weight of millions of family members killed by men in uniform, Ottoman uniforms. Armenians do not take orders from Dashnaks or anyone else, any more than all Turks take orders from fascist Grey Wolves.
As a student of social psychology and history, particularly the Nazi era and the Holocaust, I have trouble with the use of the term "genocide" concerning the Turkish/Armenian events of 1915. The word "genocide" was invented as an American description of the Nazi "endlosung", the Final Solution to the "Jewish Problem" in the late 1930's. The word did not exist in any language in 1915.In order to elicit the true facts of the Turkish/Armenian dispute, historians and sociologists should agree on using language that was in common usage ar the time of occurence, and certainly stay away from character assasinations.
mr kravis overlooks that rafael lemkin coined the word specifically to describe the annihalation of the Armenians and the Jews. He is confusing the concept of an ex post facto law with coming to a judgment about an historical fact.
In 1949, Lemkin was interviewed by CBS about the genesis of his interest in creating a legal framework for the murder of a race or culture. Lemkin labelled the murder of Armenians as Genocide. That "genocide" was coined by him as stated is commonly known, but here is one quick statement by him:
Raphael Lemkin then explains to the moderator how his interest in genocide began: “I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians; and after[wards] the Armenians got a very rough deal at the Versailles Conference because [Ottoman government] criminals were guilty of genocide and were not punished. You know that they [the Ottoman Turks] were organized in a terroristic organization which took justice into its own hands. The trial of Talaat Pasha in 1921 in Berlin is very instructive. A man (Soghomon Tehlirian), whose mother was killed in the genocide, killed Talaat Pasha. And he told the court that he did it because his mother came in his sleep ... many times. Here, …the murder of your mother, you would do something about it! So he committed a crime. So, you see, as a lawyer, I thought that a crime should not be punished by the victims, but should be punished by a court, by a national law.”
Cong. Emanuel Celler (D-NY), who was also interviewed in that same CBS program, added: “Pres. Wilson, a great democratic leader, tried to save the Armenian people from genocide during the First World War and shortly thereafter.”
Norman israel = Mr. Beemer = jda = an Armenian Falsifier and a Turk hater
Morgenthau is neither a career diplomat nor a historian. But he plays both on "The Great Armenian Deception" TV series. He's got two male Armenian secretaries: Schmavonian (the schmak) and andonian (the great falsifiers.) Morgenthau did not write those reports; these two Armenians did. Morg just signed them. What do you expect from a real estate agent who impersonates a diplomat and a historian?
Mr. Kirlikovali adds humor of a sort to his Nazi tirades.
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