Genocide and the Sound of Silence

Momentum is building in the U.S. House of Representatives for a resolution that officially recognizes as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War.

And this time around, if and when the resolution comes to a vote, American Jewry’s mainline organizations may sit on their hands rather than – as they have done in the past – side with the Turkish government, which opposes such measures and obstinately denies that an episode viewed by many historians as a dress rehearsal for the Holocaust was, indeed, genocide.

Nathan Guttman, writing in today’s issue of The Forward, reports that representatives of eight Jewish organizations – the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Orthodox Union, Chabad, and United Jewish Communities – met two weeks ago with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Gul asked their support in lobbying against the resolution, introduced by California Democrat Adam Schiff and supported by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

When similar resolutions came up in the past, Jewish organizations generally supported Turkey’s opposition, citing a desire not to complicate Israel’s military and economic relationships with Turkey and/or concerns about the safety of Turkey’s Jewish community.

As Guttman tells it, the organizations’ response to Gul’s pitch was tepid – more out a desire not to buck the newly-elected House speaker, and out of a desire not to be held as responsible by the Turkish government should the organizations opposed and fail to stop a measure that appears to have a strong chance of passage.

It would be nice to be able to say that the organizations rejected Turkey’s blandisments with public statements that the Armenian genocide was just that: genocide.

But at least they don’t take the position that it’s debatable whether genocide occurred.

That role was left to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

Reports Guttman:

When asked at a press conference if Israel would convince Jewish organizations in the United States to take action against the resolution, Olmert said it was a matter for members of Congress to decide. But he added, “It will be better if independent experts come together and look into the matter.”

Olmert’s statement echoed Turkey’s assertion that what happed to the Armenians at the time of the Ottoman Empire is a matter for historians, not politicians.

Olmert’s statement is both astounding and appalling, given the historical record to be found in openly available diplomatic and church mission archives in the U.S., Great Britain and Germany.

If today a head of government in Germany, Austria or Poland were to make a similar declaration regarding the historicity of the Holocaust, American Jewish organizations would be denouncing him or her as a “denier.”

Wait! What’s that deafening sound we hear issuing from computer keyboards and fax machines at the Committee, Congress, ADL, JINSA et al.?

???

???

???

Ah, yes. It’s the sound of silence.

-- Posted by Adam Simms