The opposition to recognition

By Contributor
May 4th, 2010
Section: Letter to the Editor - Opinions

Arby Eivazian
Contributing columnist

Armenians are the loudest advocates for recognition of the genocide of WWI. The United States, which has a significant Armenian population, has through the foreign relations committee in congress adopted recognition of the historical fact but the bill has never been given permission to come up for a vote. President Obama has promised to recognize the genocide but again this year he used less controversial words such as “atrocity” and “mass murder”. These are the same words that can are used to describe school shootings.  The reason the Armenian Genocide is not recognized in congress is due to pressure and threats from various interest groups.

As the bill came to a vote in a committee last month, weapons dealers began to speak out loud about what a harmful measure this would be.  The manufacturers of bombs and tanks warned the American congress that this would be against the interests of the US.  In a signed statement, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, cautioned of “alienating a significant NATO ally and trading partner” and “negative repercussions for U.S. geopolitical interests.” The multi-billion dollar companies did not make clear what evidence they were citing to make such an allegation, however it is speculated they were responding to Turkey’s constant threats of worsening ties between the two governments if the legislation were to pass.  History has proven their threats to be unfounded with reality due to the fact they made the same threats to France when they recognized the genocide nearly ten years ago and trade between the two nations has actually increased. The companies’ threat made significant headlines and scared many in congress of the repercussions of recognition.

President Clinton called congress and pulled the bill from coming to a vote in 2000. George W. Bush and Barack Obama also promised to recognize the genocide as candidates but it went unfulfilled. A Congressman who sponsored the recent bill described “a full court press…something I had never seen before,” in describing the pressure from the previous White House its attempt to prevent the bill from coming to a vote. In essence the administration overstepped the American tradition of balance of powers between the presidency and the congress.

What surprises Armenians most is the fact that groups who advocated for the recognition and teaching of the Jewish Holocaust urge restraint against genocide recognition. The Anti-Defamation league claims it is not the place for congress to decide on history, despite the fact congress has passed legislation recognizing the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Abraham Foxman, the head of the influential group ADL, has been adamant about how wrong it would be if the Armenian Genocide was recognized and in the same breath he condemns others who deny the Holocaust. He has gone far as to say it would be against the interests of the nations of Turkey-Armenia which is absolutely absurd since the agreement between the two was dead before it was signed. Foxman, along with the ADL and its subsidiaries such as No Place for Hate, continue to advocate for hate by their denial of the Armenian genocide.

Armenians have advocated for the recognition of the genocide for decades and have been disappointed many times. It is not only in the interest of Armenians that genocides get recognized but for everyone in the world. Genocide recognition is a global warning to rogue leaders who kill populations. As long as leaders are committing genocides and getting away with it, both in the act and within the courts of public opinion after the fact, leaders will continue to be tempted to do evil because no power  can stop them. After all, who speaks of Armenians today? Hitler told his advisors before his invasions. The Nobel Prize peace prize winning President Obama spoke the most extensively on the topic of the genocide and that he “intend[ed] to be that president” who recognized the Armenian genocide, as a candidate. If his intentions are true and we take him for his word, he has a unbending rivalry in position in the United States who will do everything they can to make that impossible. It will truly be a work of brilliance to maneuver against the groups that hold such a powerful clout in Washington.

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  • Joseph

    Mr. Arby, this is very very good. You’ve done outdone yourself. You should show this to Mr. Nabulsi.

  • Alex

    How strange. This letter, “Opposition to Recognition”, didn’t appear in the pages of the newspaper this week… mine did. I do not know why it would appear online in the place of my own article on the same subject. For those who missed it, the following article appeared in the Letter to the Editor section of the physical Daily Sundial, on March 3:

    Holocaust Denial is a Crime, Genocide Denial is Kosher

    Every year the Armenians scattered across the earth commemorate the event that lead to their being scattered across the earth, the Armenian Genocide. What resistance this term still provokes comes from two sources, logically from two sources that will be damaged directly by its recognition.
    The apparent source is the present Turkish Republic, which does not want to be known as a state built on genocide, and therefore avoids the odium of being known as a genocidal state. The other, and the more troubling, is the zealous opposition of Israel and Jewish organizations.
    For years all the top Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, (which in ’07 under Abe Foxman fired the head of its New England chapter, Andrew Tarsy, for accepting the Armenian Genocide) AIPAC, (which trains Turkish diplomats in ways to obfuscate the issue of the Genocide) the B’nai Brith, and the mother of all Jewish organizations, the ‘Jewish state’, Israel, have not merely refused to recognize the Armenian Genocide, which would be understandable and well within their rights as an uninvolved party,–no honest man demands tears of sorrow from strangers for his own loss, he is too begrieved to look for an audience– but is actively at the forefront of suppressing the first genocide of the 20th century.
    They have created lovely euphemisms for their dishonesty, calling Jewish genocide deniers, like Bernard Lewis, Richard Pearle, and others, ‘The Jewish Exclusivist School’; that is, Jews who want to keep the Holocaust ‘unique’ event. They certainly are unique, we’ll give ‘em that, if their leaders cast themselves as the defenders of the memory of genocide and the sufferers of ‘the most unspeakable crime in history’ while at the same time working hard to make people forget, denying the genocide that preceded and influenced their own.
    Their most often stated excuse, these Jewish leaders, is that the passage of an official statement either in the U.N. or especially in the legislature of the U.S., will adversely effect the relationship between Israel and Turkey, Israel’s only Muslim ally. “Oh,” we are to say, “they are not evil, merely political opportunists.”
    There are men in prison today, like David Irving in Britain, for doubting the Holocaust; yet for the conscious act of suppressing the recognition of the Genocide, Jewish groups and Israel are kosher because in so doing they’re pursuing selfish political interests. (To be sure, there’s a good bit of denial too: a Jewish attorney named Bruce Fein working for the Turkish Coalition of America can safely write an article titled “Lies, Damn Lies and Armenian Deaths” (Hufington Post, June 4, 2009) Which, I ask, is worse: To doubt sincerely, or to cynically suppress and to say “We believe it” and to suppress it nonetheless? The former is merely foolhardy, the latter is evil.
    Even if a bill recognizing the Genocide passes this or in the coming years, it will be because of Jewish groups withdrawing their hand and allowing it to pass to hurt a Turkey that no longer cooperates with Israel, as recently Turkey refused to admit Israel into a joint NATO military excercise; or when the President of Turkey scolded Shimon Peres on Palestinian deaths, the next day in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz a columnist mused: “Perhaps the next time the Armenian genocide bill comes up in the U.S. congress, the Palestinians will help them block it.” You know what? Maybe it will pass sometime soon, but for all the wrong reasons.

    Alex Papadapulos
    Junior
    English

    • Joseph

      The Palestinians don’t deny Armenian Genocide and they probably mostly don’t know who Armenians are aside from the ones they know in the Old City of Jerusalem. Most people in the world don’t know about Armenian Genocide. Aside from that, excellent post

  • Lindsay

    Obama’s silence on this issue upon being elected is just another disappointment that adds to his tragic repertoire. I really wanted to believe that we would finally have a president who would follow through on all of his promises, especially one that has been ready and waiting a century for its resolution. And when did the US begin letting Turkey (or anyone) boss it around?

    “In essence the administration overstepped the American tradition of balance of powers between the presidency and the congress.” –well said. If Obama wanted to be a lobbyist, he is doing it from the wrong seat.

    “Foxman, along with the ADL and its subsidiaries such as No Place for Hate, continue to advocate for hate by their denial of the Armenian genocide.” –sadly, I think they all have managed to find a place for hate because there is no rational reason to let this fact go unnoticed.

  • Lucy

    Amazing letter and I’m impressed that research has been done to back up all of the Armenians claims for recognition of the Genocide by Obama. It’s a shame that morality does not apply to all people because of financial pressures and political interests.