http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=7002
Jews Deny Armenian Holocaust
News; Posted on: 2005-11-25 18:51:24
Jews: Armenian Holocaust open for debate, students should be instructed on both sides.
Boston attorneys Harvey Silvergate (ACLU) and Norman Zalkind have filed a federal lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Education for requiring students to learn about the Armenian Holocaust. The Boston Globe (owned by the New York Times) was more than happy to feature the following article.
Censoring History
by Harvey Silvergate and Norman Zalkind (pictured)
Boston Globe | November 25, 2005
In March 1999, the Massachusetts Legislature enacted a statute that required the construction of a curricular materials guide "on genocide and human rights issues" for use in public schools. The guide itself states that it should provide "differing points of view on controversial issues." However, when it came time to implement the law, the Department of Education, after initially including materials on both sides of the "Armenian Genocide" controversy, eliminated all materials arguing against the genocide classification.
This censorship of previously included materials occurred after the department was lobbied by a state senator and others who claimed that any thesis calling the label genocide into question was "racist" or "hate speech." Commissioner David Driscoll and Board of Education Chairman James E. Peyser consequently wrote on Aug. 31, 1999, that "the legislative intent of the statute was to address the Armenian genocide and not to debate whether or not this occurred." Driscoll and Peyser thus made an inherently political decision that reversed the educational judgment of those who thought both sides worthy of being aired. Any time political interference results in censorship of educationally suitable materials, our students lose.
...our lawsuit challenges the Massachusetts Department of Education's attempt to stamp its imprimatur on a single view of history, to the exclusion of all others, on the minds of our high school students.
The historical dispute involves interpreting what happened to the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia during and after World War I in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Though historians have documented death and deportation of large numbers of Armenians (as well as the deaths of many Turks), they disagree over whether what happened constitutes "genocide," a term defined by international law as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. While many historians argue that it was the intent of the Turks to exterminate the Armenians as a people, others counter that such intent has not been firmly established and that the events more closely resemble a civil war than a genocidal campaign.
The debate over whether "Armenian Genocide" is a historically accurate designation or an exaggerated and politicized claim has followed the battle lines that mark today's political and cultural landscape. [....] Special-interest groups intolerant of dissent enlist government to endow their side with unimpeachable credibility.
It is against this backdrop of a culture eager to censor that our lawsuit attempts to reaffirm a quintessential American value. As Massachusetts native and US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in 1929, "[t]he principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate," is arguably the most imperative principle in the US Constitution.
More on this sorry subject - pay attention to the role of that swine Richard Perle:
http://www.talkaboutculture.com/group/soc.culture.usa/messages/1678009.html
SHIMON PERES, A HOLOCAUST DENIER
Robert Fisk in Jerusalem
18 April 2001
One of Israel's leading scholars of the Jewish Holocaust has angrily compared the country's Nobel prize-winning Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, to a holocaust denier after an interview in which Mr Peres made the astonishing claim that the Armenians - 1.5 million of whom were slaughtered by Ottoman Turks in 1915 - never experienced a genocide.
Mr Peres' statement appeared in the Turkish Daily News prior to a recent state visit to Turkey; the paper says he went so far as to refer to the Armenian account of the mass slaughter as "meaningless".
Israel Charny, the editor of the distinguished new two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide, has written to Mr Peres, expressing his shame at the remarks and accusing Mr Peres of going "beyond a moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to trespass".
Dr Charny, who is also executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, has reminded the Foreign Minister that Israeli academics signed a public declaration at a recent holocaust conference in Philadelphia stating that the Armenian genocide was factual.
To the fury of Armenians, and of Dr Charny, Turkey is funding a worldwide campaign to deny the facts of the Armenian holocaust which was unleashed by Ottoman rulers against Turkey's Christian minority in the First World War. Tens of thousands of Armenian men were executed by Turkish forces in 1915, and their families deported to the Syrian desert where they were systematically plundered, raped and butchered by Turkish gendarmes and marauding Kurds.
At the time, the British Foreign Office denounced the Armenian holocaust (Winston Churchill first used the word about the Armenians) although today's British Government, apparently fearing Turkish displeasure, initially tried to prevent Armenian participation in this year's Holocaust Memorial Day.
Dr Charny, who devotes 45 pages of detailed factual evidence and copies of documents on the Armenian holocaust in his encyclopedia, was among those Israeli historians who refused to give in to Israeli Foreign Ministry pressure when Turkey objected to the inclusion of the Armenian slaughter in a 1982 holocaust conference in Tel Aviv. Dr Charny says Mr Peres telephoned him then, urging him "not to insist on including the subject of the Armenians".
When Adolf Hitler was preparing the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews, he asked his Wehrmacht generals if the world any longer remembered the Armenian genocide; but Israel has often adopted an ambiguous attitude towards the 20th century's first holocaust.
Unwilling to antagonise its present-day Turkish ally - and in some cases unwilling to compare Armenian suffering with that of European Jewry - the Israeli Foreign Office persuaded the Jewish Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to withdraw from the 1982 conference's debates on the Armenians.
In Dr Charny's unprecedented letter to Mr Peres, he says:
"It seems that because of your wishes to advance very important relations with Turkey, you have been prepared to circumvent the subject of the Armenian genocide in 1915-1920 ... it may be that in your broad perspective of the needs of the state of Israel, it is your obligation to circumvent and desist from bringing up the subject with Turkey, but, as a Jew and an Israeli, I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust."
The Turkish newspaper states Mr Peres said Israel should not determine a "philosophical position" on the Armenian holocaust. "We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide."
If Mr Peres has been quoted accurately - and he has made no attempt to correct the newspaper - his remarks will deeply offend millions of Armenians. It is standard Turkish policy to refer with contempt to Armenian suffering as "allegations" and to downgrade the Armenian holocaust as a mere "tragedy". To the relief of the millions of Armenians descendants of the 1915 bloodbath, Dr Charny has never wavered. His encyclopedia states bluntly that both the Armenian and Jewish genocides were the products of state-initiated policies. "The Armenian genocide occurred under the circumstances of the Turkish revolution and the First World War," it says, "while the [Jewish] Holocaust was a product of the Nazi revolution and the Second World War."
Turkey maintains, despite US diplomatic evidence at the time, that the Armenians were mere victims of a "civil war". An American diplomat, Leslie Davis, the US consul at Harput, saw the bodies of thousands of Armenians in the Turkish countryside in 1915, many of them knifed to death. "A massacre, however horrible the word may sound, would be humane in comparison," he wrote.
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[B][SIZE="4"]THE TURKISH - ISRAELI ALLIANCE AND GENOCIDE DENIAL[/SIZE][/B]
It is a sad and painful truth that, as a consequence of the expanding alliance between Turkey and Israel, the Jewish American lobby is now also a Turkish lobby, and has declared war on Armenians.
The story begins in 1949. Turkey became the first Muslim state to recognize Israel, though relations in the years following were not always warm. The two states established full diplomatic relations in 1991, however, and by 1996 were in open embrace after signing a Military & Training Cooperation Agreement and a Free Trade Agreement. Actually, the romance had budded even a bit earlier, but behind closed doors.
[B]For example, after a stint at the Pentagon under Pres. Reagan, prominent Jewish American Richard Perle became a paid ($231,000) lobbyist for Turkey and, working alongside Israel, reportedly quashed a Senate resolution in 1989 on the Armenian Genocide. Perle now chairs the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board.[/B]
Just last year, the director of the American Jewish Committee, Barry Jacobs, bragged, "We will champion to the best of our ability Turkish interests in the US Congress."
But why would Turkey and Israel, a nation hated by many Muslims, including Turks, become allies?
[B]Common Enemies[/B]
What Turkey and Israel (along with the US) have most in common is a trio of enemies: Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Though they share the Muslim faith, Turks look down upon Arabs and still resent their revolt against the Turkish Empire in World War I. In turn, Syria and Iraq, like most Arab countries, detest Turkey's superiority complex and its partnerships, such as NATO, with the generally pro-Israeli West.
Turkey has angered Syria and Iraq by limiting the flow of water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Likewise, Syria had infuriated Turkey by hosting the anti-Turkish fighters of the Kurdish PKK up until 1998. Additionally, Syrians have long regarded Turkey's Hatay province (Alexandretta) as being rightfully theirs, while Turks have never fully relinquished claims on the oil-rich Mosul region of northern Iraq.
Iran - Persia - has clashed with Turks for nearly a thousand years, and the two compete for influence among Muslims in the ex-Soviet states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Tehran and Ankara also suspect the other is encouraging separatist movements: Azeris in Iran, and Kurds in Turkey.
But the reasons for the alliance don't stop there.
[B]More Reasons[/B]
Israel earns billions when it upgrades Turkish weapons, such as F-4 jets, and when Turkey purchases Israeli weapons, such as Popeye air-to-surface missiles and, possibly, the partly American-funded Homa/Arrow anti-ballistic missile system. Whereas Western countries sometimes hesitate to sell Turkey weapons due to human rights concerns, Israeli analyst Efrain Inbar says his country "is not as scrupulous as most nations in the world in this area [selling weapons]".
The two countries trade intelligence data on common adversaries and, almost certainly, on Cyprus, Greece, and even Armenians. Israel reportedly flies spy planes and has electronic listening posts along Turkey's southern border.
Israeli Air Force pilots drill Turkish counterparts in combat techniques, and, in return, get to hone their own skills in Turkey's expansive airspace. Together with the US, Turkey and Israel conduct naval maneuvers each January dubbed "Reliant Mermaid". Some experts even speculate that Israel could provide Turkey with a "nuclear umbrella"
Water-poor Israel has also been negotiating with water-rich Turkey to have that vital commodity shipped to Israel by tankers.
[B]Periphery Strategy[/B]
The present strategy of Ankara (and the US State Department) to penetrate the Muslim/Turkic nations of the former USSR such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - all of which are sitting on oil and gas reserves - fits Tel Aviv's own ambitions.
As part of its long-standing "Periphery" strategy, Israel seeks friends among distant non-Arab Muslim nations in order to counter nearby Arab Muslim hostility. In the last decade, Israel has established relationships, especially in the field of agriculture, with all six ex-Soviet Muslim countries.
Israel also hopes to see oil and gas exported from the Caspian Basin, not just for itself but also to lessen the West's dependence on Arab oil and thus reduce Arab leverage against the West. Hence, Israel supports the proposed oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey.
[B]Jewish Lobby[/B]
The Turkish-Israeli deal included an extra provision: the powerful Jewish American lobby - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee and several other organizations - would toil on Turkey's behalf, particularly in countering the Armenian and Greek lobbies.
Though the average American - Jewish or otherwise - is unaware of that provision, experts openly acknowledge it. Even five years ago, for instance, Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz and Cagri Erdem - respectively Jewish and Turkish analysts - were trumpeting that "the influential Jewish lobby" could help Ankara "improve its image, diminish the accusations of Armenian and Greek lobbying groups, and improve its economic and defense cooperation with the US."
Indeed, in October of 2000, Jewish organizations and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres helped the State Department kill an Armenian Genocide resolution in the House of Representatives. "The Jewish lobby," reported Turkey's Sabah newspaper, "threw all its weight into the job ... and very openly at that."
In 2001, a major Jewish organization in Maryland tried to stop the state from passing an Armenian Genocide resolution. Legislator Cheryl Kagan, who also happens to sit on the board of the American Jewish Committee, termed the Genocide "an alleged massacre" and compared the bill to one designating "the official state cat". Fortunately, the resolution passed anyway.
Partly as an outgrowth of the Israel-Turkey relationship, the Jewish lobby labored for years against Armenian Americans to repeal Congressional sanctions, known as "Section 907", on Azerbaijan. Finally, in the wake of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration, helped along by the Jewish lobby, succeeded in repealing the sanctions.
Around that same time, nine leading Jewish American organizations formally asked Pres. Bush to provide Turkey "debt forgiveness, trade concessions, and/or further [loan] relief".
In Los Angeles, the taxpayer-funded Jewish "Museum of Tolerance", apparently bowing to Turkish and Israeli desires, has broken its pledge to include an Armenian Genocide exhibit.
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv, like Washington, keeps Turkey happy by employing euphemisms such as Armenian "tragedy" rather than "genocide".
Though it is hypocritical of Jewish leaders to conspire with Turkey in covering up the Genocide, it cannot be said that Israel or Jews are somehow uniquely pro-Turkish. After all, the governments and power structures of the "Christian" West and elsewhere have long supported Turkey and been largely indifferent to Armenian interests. Nevertheless, American Jewish clout in government, media, academia, and commerce provides Turkey with new and powerful allies.
[B]For example, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pres. Bush's chief foreign policy strategist, is fervently pro-Turkish. Noted Jewish political analyst Dr. Daniel Pipes acknowledges that "to make its case," Turkey "counts on American Jews such as" Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, and Prof. Bernard Lewis (a Genocide denier and Bush advisor), as well as on Jewish "institutions".
[/B]
In an intriguing press release issued by his office in January, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), co-chair of the Congressional Armenian Caucus and a good friend of Armenians, stated that improved "Armenian/Israeli relations" are important to the Bush administration. He suggested that Armenia follow Turkey's example of establishing close links to Israel. That far-away Tel Aviv plays a central role in Washington's policy toward Armenia speaks volumes.
Basically, Israel and Turkey are both nations that have routinely and roughly abused their neighbors and are therefore now hated by nearly everybody. Even without Marrano influence, it is only natural for these bandits to stick together, as this Jewish columnist puts it:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/1453.htm
The intertwined fates of Turkey and Israel
By Albert Nekimken September 22, 2002
Originally published in the Washington-based Turkish Times.
...
In the mid-1970s, Ilhan Selcuk, a Leftist and often anti-American columnist for Cumhuriyet, a leading Istanbul daily, wrote with empathy about the plight of "the lonely man," by which he meant the country in the Middle East that stood alienated and alone, surrounded by hostile neighbors-presumably Israel. As he developed his argument, the reader gradually understood that the "yalniz adam" (lonely man) was, in fact, Turkey.
...
But it is worth remembering again that the relationship between Turkey and Israel, or Jews, began long before the 20th Century. In 1492, Ottoman Sultan Bayazit II, ordered provincial governors "not to refuse the Jews entry or cause them difficulties [after their expulsion from Span and Portugal], but to receive them cordially." Historians such as Bernard Lewis, write that Jews were not just permitted to settle in Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled to do so. Bayazit II remarked allegedly that "the Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered as wise, since he impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched Turkey."
But this was only the beginning. Jews expelled from territory in Italy under Papal control in 1537 and those expelled from Bohemia in 1542 by King Ferdinand also found safe haven in the Ottoman Empire. In March 1556, Sultan Suleiman "the Magnificent" wrote a letter to Pope Paul IV asking for the immediate release of the Ancona Marranos, whom he declared to be Ottoman citizens. The Pope had no other alternative but to release them in recognition of the superior status of the Ottoman Empire at the time. By 1477, Jewish households in Istanbul numbered 1,647, or 11% of the total and 50 years later, their numbers had risen four-fold.
...
During WWII, Turkish diplomats rescued many Jews from Nazi persecution by giving them passports and Istanbul became a haven for many Jewish academics, such as Erich Auerbach, who did some his best work in Turkey.
In 1948, the United States was the first nation to recognize the new state of Israel; Turkey was the second. When the General Assembly adopted a resolution in December of the year calling on the Arabs and Jews to negotiate peace and creating a Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), it consisted of the United States, France and Turkey. All Arab delegations voted against it.
..
In 1952 (the year when Turkey became a full member of NATO), General Omar Bradley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believed that the West required 19 divisions to defend the Middle East and that Israel could supply two. By 1955, he expected only three states to provide the West with air power in Middle Eastern defense: Great Britain, Turkey and Israel.
Today, although Turkey is a Muslim country, it has become Israel's strongest ally in the region and comprises one leg of an official, strategic and military alliance between the United States, Turkey and Israel. Strong relations between the countries on the levels of trade, tourism and diplomacy stand in sharp contrast to the cold relations between Israel and Egypt, or between Turkey and its neighbor Syria.
Both Turkey and Israel have highly developed intelligence networks, modern weapons and trained armies. Beyond that, Turkey and Israel cooperate on the level of lobbying to influence American and European public opinion on a variety of issues. (With some annoyance, a leading Greek think tank attributed much of the effectiveness of the Turkish lobby in the U.S. to its "ability to manipulate and exploit the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship and the influence of the Jewish-American community in order to advance the Turkish agenda.")
...
Petr
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