The Armenian Genocide Debate: What's at Stake

What Genocide Deniers and Their Would Be Censors Share

When Education Becomes Indoctrination

21 Comments

• Megan Rees said:

  This article is so ignorant, insulting and arrogant that I don't know where to begin. My great grandparents watched their relatives, friends and neighbors be systematically murdered, raped, and kidnapped simply because of their ethnicity. This sense of sadness and fear stained my grandparents' entire existence. And it hurts me to know that they may live their entire lives without the US government doing as little as acknowledging the genodical campaign that was waged against their families. I don't want money. I have plenty of it. I don't want to feel like a victim. I feel blessed. All I want is for my grandparents to have a sense of peace. I want them to know that the human race has improved since that tragic period and that politics and money don't take precendence over human life. I want this cloud that hangs over them every day to be lifted. Working at a grassroots level to change the policy of the ADL is one of the only ways I feel I can bring about change on a grand scale. I'm sorry that "popular" local programs may suffer for a short time, but in the big picture it will be worth it because we will benefit so much more from stopping this pattern of genocide and denial. Wendy Kaminer, I'd like to introduce you to my grandparents. I'd like for you to tell them to their faces that the tragedy their parents experienced was only an incidental occurrence "tantamount to genocide." You can tell them yourself that what happened to their parents "a century ago" is now forgotten and irrelevent. And you can tell them that the pain they feel is a "halo of victimization." My e-mail address is attached to this message. Please send me an e-mail to set this up.
  September 20, 2007 8:45 PM

• Harut said:

  Why don't you write this same article but replace the word Armenian with Jewish! Let’s see how long you would have your job! What kind of article is this? What is the point of your article? I only see a lack of tolerance in what you have written. How can you say that what my people went through is not important? "Obviously, as time passes, the consequences of the original crime, however horrific, become terribly attenuated." Maybe that how you might feel about the suffering that my ancestors went through but that’s not how it is in my life and especially my grandmother's life. She sat by the window everyday of her life and looked out into the sunset and tears rolled down her kind wrinkled cheeks everyday. Do you know why? My grandmother lost her entire family during the genocide she was the only one to survive out of a family of five. Her mother, father, and both her older brothers were MURDERED IN FRONT OF HER EYES! That young innocent little 5 year old girl's eyes saw horrors that no one should ever see! She told me, "I miss the song my mother would sing to me when we watched the sunset every night!" I don’t understand how you can say what you have said in this article and don’t tell me follow the money, because why don’t you follow the trail of money form Foxman's and Press' pockets to the Turkish government! And if u think a "no place for hate" program should be selective about the intolerant of any crime against humanity well I think there is something wrong!
  September 21, 2007 1:03 AM

• Bruce Boghosian said:

  In her article on the current controversy surrounding the ADL and the Armenian Genocide, the usually insightful Wendy Kaminer asks, "Why should we encourage people to feel so horribly victimized by evils visited upon ancestors who died before they were born?" If she is going to write an article on this subject, she could at least get her arithmetic right. I was born 40 years after the Armenian Genocide. As a child and young adult, I personally knew many, many of its survivors. They were my relatives and my family's friends. I spoke directly with many people who had endured the death marches into the Syrian desert, people who had been orphaned, and people who had been scarred for life. I heard their stories first hand. I saw their tears with my own eyes. It is true that there are fewer such people with each passing year, but there is still one who is very important to me. We recently celebrated my grandmother's one hundredth birthday. She was born in 1907, and her mind is still as sharp as it ever was. She remembers the day the soldiers took her father away. She remembers being forced to march with her mother and sisters, carrying only what they could take on their backs. And she remembers how her mother, and each of her sisters in succession, died of exposure and starvation in the deserts of northern Syria. Ask her about it, and she will sit down with you and slowly relate the story to you as though it happened just yesterday. So, Wendy Kaminer, please understand that this is not about some abstract matter that is forever shrouded in the mists of history. This is about the memories of people who are still very much alive, and who are angered by years of watching powerful nations and organizations deny their life experiences for reasons of crass political expediency. This is about people who are fed up with the naked hypocrisy of an organization that claims to defend the persecuted, but abets in the denial of genocide. I want my grandmother to live long enough to see the US Congress and the ADL acknowledge something that she has known for her entire life -- that she was a victim of genocide. Finally, I am delighted to hear that Ms. Kaminer leaves "to historians the determination of what constitutes genocide." For her information, the historians have already made up their minds on the matter. Ten years ago, the International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously passed a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide. They also branded a 2005 call by the Turkish prime minister for “impartial study by historians” as not scholarship, but propaganda, intended “to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history.” So the history is there. Now all Ms. Kaminer has to do is learn it.
  September 21, 2007 2:51 AM

• Dianne Donoian said:

  I am greatly offended by Wendy Kaminer's article on the Armenian Genocide and genocide deniers, such as the ADL. The Phoenix should be embarrassed to print such thoughtless rubbish in the guise of news. Ms. Kaminer evidently has built her career on making inflammatory statements and this is more of the same. She, of course, has every right to express attention-seeking opinions. But to trivialize murder? The murder of millions of people? It's beyond understanding. Though it does give me insight into the minds of people who perpetrate genocide themselves. She may believe that she is being clever, but she has insulted my murdered family members (and yes, I was raised by survivors) in a way that hurts me personally and is unacceptable in a civilized society. She has diminished both herself and the Phoenix.
  September 21, 2007 3:03 AM

• KenNoha Kalegpari said:

  Dear Madam Secretary Condoleezza Rice: Your comments during U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations hearings (Wednesday, March 21, 2007), on the issue of the Armenian Genocide are insulting, racist, and void of decency. According to your remarks the United States should not be involved in a dispute between Turkey and Armenia over whether the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians almost a century ago constituted genocide. The Armenian Genocide is an American human rights issue, not a dispute between two distant countries. Just as slavery was and still is an American human rights issue not a dispute between Nigeria or any other African state and Great Britain. The present day Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Nagorno Karapakh, have little concern about the Armenian Genocide because they are the only provinces of historic Armenia which were able to defend themselves against continuous Turkish aggressions, and maintain their independence against the harshest odds. These Republics and their neighboring Turkish states do have many issues which have a better chance of being resolved once the United States properly acknowledges the Armenian Genocide. It is I, and millions of Americans of Armenian descent like me, who lost their ancestral homeland, and found refuge in this great country, it is us that were promised to have our homes back by President Woodrow Wilson, it is us who want you to honor our history and our rights as human beings. If all Americans adopted your racist attitude about human rights issues probably you would still have been a slave now. After reading your comments I wonder which is worse, the physical enslavement of people, or the enslavement of the mind which leads to the moral prostitution of the American constitution and all the values that it stands for in the hands of this administration. Your comments are equally insulting and degrading to Turkish Americans and citizens of Turkey who are working to introduce a true democracy in that country, so that it can be integrated into the European Union. True democratic values and traditions are trampled over and destroyed in Turkey by our desire to accommodate bases for our troops, airfields for our warplanes, and contracts for our multinational corporations. Finally, how would you feel if our past secretary of states told Dr. Martin Luther King and all the civil rights advocates “I think that these historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians and what we’ve encouraged the ‘Slave Traders’ and the ‘Negroes’ to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past and, in examining their past, to get over their past”. I took the liberty to replace ‘Turks’ and the ‘Armenians’ with my example, but you can replace with other pairs, such as: Germans and the Jews, Serbs and Kosovars, Americans and Natives, etc. Thank God that we still have courageous lawmakers on both sides of the isle to question your reasoning on this issue. Your choice of words “I come out of academia, but I’m secretary of state now,” I suppose this is meant to say that you used to be a decent human being when you were in academia, but now that you work for this administration you have to leave moral courage, decency, and common sense behind you. May God give you the wisdom to do the right thing. Sincerely, Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr.
  September 21, 2007 3:41 AM

• Phantom said:

  Ms. Kaminer, I don't know who you are, but this article strongly suggests that you are both morally and intellectually obtuse. There's no other explanation for your defense of the ADL. Let me try to spell it out for you: A Genocide of the Armenian people occured between 1915-1923. This is beyond any reasonable doubt, and virtually every Genocide and Holocaust scholar who has studied this history has come to this same conclusion. The ADL, as you know, is an organization that fights Holocaust denial on a daily basis and calls it "hate speech". This same ADL, knowing the facts of the Armenian Genocide full well, continues to DENY A GENOCIDE. If this is not the apex of hypocrisy, tell me what is! How can a person of good conscience support any program of the ADL so long as the ADL continues to DENY A GENOCIDE and fights against its recognition and commemoration? Moreover, each of these towns who have cut their ties to the ADL's program have also agreed that they will continue tolerance programs on their own. Is the ADL the only group in America qualified to teach tolerance? Does the ADL have a monopoloy on it? I think not, and its morally bankrupt denial of the Armenian Genocide proves it. That you don't get this is truly amazing. And that the Phoenix would print such a racist rant is very dissappointing.
  September 21, 2007 5:24 PM

• John Garabedian said:

  Dear Ms. Kaminer, Thank you for your insightful and thoughtful comments on the ADL and the Armenian Genocide controversy. Now that your opinion has illuminated the world on this matter, perhaps you should send a message to the Rwandan community and tell them to forget about what happened to them too. After all, the Rwandan Genocide is already a full 14 years old. Just think: cell phones weren’t even in popular use back then! How ancient is that? Praise the skies that you’ve discovered this mathematical formula. Let’s tell the United Nations to postpone sending peacekeeping troops to Darfur for a couple of more years. Then they no longer will have to do it at all, since it will be history. While we’re on the subject of history, Ms. Kaminer, please write to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Dr. Stephen Feinstein of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Michigan, Professors Israel Charny, Yehuda Bauer and countless others to tell them their history degrees are null and void. After all, they certainly must not be true historians if you state that you are leaving the decision to call the 1915 events a genocide to “true historians” as if this hadn’t already been done so. Similarly, you should have Dr. Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Prize revoked. Also, please refrain from writing to the Boston Phoenix again. Your intellectual honesty and brilliance is clearly much too superior to be associated with a mere newspaper. May I humbly suggest senior citizens’ birthday greeting cards as a more appropriate place for your writing to shine? Your particularly delicate way of telling “old people” they don’t matter seems a match made in heaven with said industry.
  September 21, 2007 5:46 PM

• Alik, Cambridge, MA said:

  I reject the notion that Armenians of my generation (whose great grandparents were slaughtered, raped and uprooted from their ancestral homes) think of themselves as victims. We are rightfully seeking justice and struggling for the recognition of our history. The anger and pain we feel cannot be attenuated until Turkey recognizes its crime. The reparation we seek is moral and not financial as you suggest. The ADL - a human rights organization – is helping Turkey in its genocide denial campaign, and therefore we oppose ADL sponsored anti-biased programs in our towns until the ADL becomes the truly anti-bias organization it claims to be. One day, after the Turkish government recognizes its crime against my people, I wouldn’t mind listening to your philosophical musings about victimhood and original sin. But as long as I am being denied the right to my history, I find them misinformed, arrogant and obscene.
  September 22, 2007 3:54 AM

• Whit said:

  . Ms. Kaminer deserves an enormous amount of credit for her courage; we have here, in the feedback so far (at this point, eight of the genocide faithful have jumped down her throat) a microcosm of a coordinated campaign by extremely determined Armenians to pressure and intimidate their emotional version of events. Although her courage and honor are admirable, I would like to address a few points she has made that are not in keeping with the facts. The number of Armenians who were killed in the WWI era was closer to a third of the 1.5 million Ms. Kaminer has offered, since 1.5 million was around the total Ottoman-Armenian population, and today's worst propagandists concede 1 million survived. Most died of reasons having nothing to do with murder (as with most of the 2.5 million other Ottomans who died, those invisible victims of the conflict; the causes were mainly famine and disease), so to call the Armenian mortality a "slaughter" is also incorrect. There is absolutely no evidence connecting the Armenians who were killed with a premeditated plan of the central government; the killers of Armenians were renegade forces and marauders, such as the Kurdish tribes. The real evidence [mainly in the form of internal Ottoman documents, some pertinent ones of which were taken by the British and today rest in the British archives; see "Shocking New Documents'] points to how the Ottoman government attempted to safeguard the Armenians, which must be believed, otherwise there could not have been over 600,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire by 1921, as the Armenian Patriarch reported to the British. (This is only logical; if the idea was extermination, no Armenians could have survived under Ottoman control. The other half million or so Armenians had left on their own accord to other lands.) The Armenian National Committee of America can stress reparations all they desire (and if they believe they can do so under the regulations of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, they would obviously be very ignorant of the fact that the Convention is not retroactive), but the Armenians had given up their rights for reparations "forever" (in the words of Arthur Derounian; see Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenian Information Service, 1955) with the Gumru/Alexandropol Treaty Armenia had signed with Turkey. The Turks also gave up their rights for reparations with this treaty. The unmentioned side of this equation is that when Armenians betrayed their Ottoman nation, they conducted a campaign of the real systematic extermination campaign of the war, while occupying parts of Anatolia during 1915-20 with and without their Russian allies, and after the war, with their French allies. A British officer estimated that the Armenians slaughtered (and here, the word may be used correctly) 300,000-400,000 Ottomans who did not fit the racial and religious profile of the Armenians, including Jews, in two districts alone. (Van and Bitlis.) The accounts left behind by Russian officers is hair-raising; with Turkish men away to fight a desperate war on many fronts, the villages and villagers the Armenians destroyed were defenseless, and the Armenians conducted their methods of murder in the most sadistic ways possible. We are accustomed to accounts of Turks having conducted barbarities, but the difference is, these accounts were provided by Armenians and their missionary allies, and amount only to hearsay. The reports by the Armenians' own allies were true eyewitness accounts, with absolutely no need to defend the Armenians. The Armenians not only murdered over 500,000 Ottomans, but they conducted the worst degree of plunder and destruction. The Turks have at least as much of a right to demand reparations, but they would be too much of a "gentleman" to even ask. The response by the Armenian readers amount to the usual. "My great grandparents watched their relatives, friends and neighbors be systematically murdered, raped, and kidnapped simply because of their ethnicity," Megan Reese writes. It would stand to reason that the great grandparents would not have been spared, as they shared the same ethnicity. These "grandmother" stories cannot substitute for actual history; of course Armenians suffered in what was an abysmally inhuman time when all had suffered dismally. But there is a great difference between the ills suffered in wartime and the crime of genocide. In order to prove genocide, one must come up with the proof of "intent." No such proof exists. In addition, the 1948 UN Genocide Convention disallows political groups. The Armenians had allied themselves with their Ottoman nation's enemies, and served as "de facto belligerents," in the words of Armenian leader Boghos Nubar, as they had "indignantly refused to side with Turkey." (See Jan. 1919 letter, Times of London.) The question that Ms. Reese must answer: if her relatives were harmed, who harmed them? Was it Ottoman soldiers under orders of their government? (Note that even if there were cases of Ottoman soldiers behaving criminally, that would not necessarily serve as evidence on its own -- otherwise, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam would then need to be termed a "genocide,' which would be ridiculous.) If Ms. Reese can prove that, she would come closer to proving her genocide. However, were the killers of her relatives criminals or opportunists, or revengists for what Armenians had done to their families, such as the Kurds... as was the likely possibility? That would not construe a genocide. The family of Harut's grandmother, Harut writes, was "MURDERED IN FRONT OF HER EYES!" It certainly could have happened that way; yet it is peculiar why such mad killers would have spared the life of the grandmother, as a little girl. (Armenians were being killed strictly for being Armenians, we are told.) And if this family was murdered, who murdered them? Bruce Boghosian confidently tells us that Ms. Kaminer's wish for historians to examine these events has been fulfilled: "...[T]he International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously passed a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide." Genocide scholars almost always have fields of study having nothing to do with history, and those few with history degrees have forgotten the rules of honest history. What a historian does is examine all the pertinent information, coming up with a scientific conclusion. This is what Dr. Guenter Lewy magnificently perfromed, with his 2005 book, "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide." The aim of the genocide scholar is to affirm genocides; genocide scholars begin with the conclusion first, and are not averse in using the most corrupt information in order to support their genocide thesis. Most have never conducted original research, making use of the endless Armenian propaganda that has been compiled over the years. Very likely none has paid a visit to the Ottoman archives. (Can it be imagined to write legitimate history by avoiding the sources of the country whose history is being written, and by relying almost solely on what the enemies of the country had to report?) Furthermore, the genocide scholars are the worst hypocrites, by avoiding episodes that do not fit with their agendas. You won't hear of a genocide scholar who points to the systematic slaughter conducted by Armenians against the Ottoman Turks (and later, the Muslims and Jews of Armenia herself, during 1918-20.) By telling us who the more valuable human beings are, and by avoiding the human beings who have no value in their eyes, the genocide scholars perpetuate the greatest racism and hatred. Mr. Boghosian adds: "The [genocide scholars] also branded a 2005 call by the Turkish prime minister for 'impartial study by historians' as not scholarship, but propaganda, intended 'to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history.' So the history is there." In other words, Mr. Boghosian and the genocide scholars are telling us no further study is required, even though what is termed the Armenian genocide remains unproven. The Turkish prime minister actually appealed to his counterpart from Armenia to put together historical teams from both countries, and put this matter behind them; Armenians in particular are so conditioned with hatred, it seems like it was the most honorable step to take, so that the peoples can get on with brotherhood instead. But genocide is too politically valuable for Armenia, and Armenia rejected the call. The archives of Armenia, and the A.R.F. archives in Boston, are closed to outsiders. The Turkish archives are open to all. Who appears as having something to hide? And if the genocide scholars actually discouraged this step in the right direction, we have learned exactly how dishonest and unscholarly the genocide scholars really are. (They and the Armenians conduct the worst ad hominem attacks against the real historians, in order to safeguard their dishonest agenda. Their idea is to stifle debate, and the truth. Genocide scholars are not true scholars, they are propagandists.) "The murder of millions of people? It's beyond understanding," Dianne Donoian writes correctly, since the loss of half a million lives, mainly through non-murderous methods, cannot magically mushroom up to "millions." Ms. Donoian adds that she has been "insulted" (adding that she has been "raised by survivors." It is amazing that there could have possibly been so many survivors, if the idea was extermination), but she should consider the case of those hundreds of thousands who had been systematically killed by Ms. Donoian's forefathers, and the world has never acknowledged the fact; "insult" would not even begin to describe this latter horror. Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr. goes Ms. Donoian better by accusing Ms. Kaminer has been "insulting, racist, and void of decency." That is a truly disgusting and libelous thing to write. If someone has been accused of murder, in this case an entire nation, and there simply is not factual evidence, then it becomes the duty of honorable people to stand up and say the facts are otherwise. There is nothing "racist" about that. Such ruinous name-calling is an underhanded way to stifle debate, and it is truly disgusting. Nobody is saying Armenians did not suffer, and that some Armenians were massacred. If Mr. Kalayjian is so concerned about racism, then he ought to make a point of publicly declaring how wrong and criminal it was for his forefathers to have conducted themselves in the abominable mass murdering ways that they have. Has Mr. Kalayjian ever acknowledged these hundreds of thousands of Ottoman victims, often murdered in the most sadistic ways imaginable? Will he? If he does not, then he is making a judgment call; he would be saying these other victims were not as valuable as the Armenians. Then he can look in the mirror to see what true racism entails. Mr. Kalayjian further deplores that he and fellow Armenians have "lost their ancestral homeland." The Ottoman program to resettle the treacherous Armenian community, taking place after Ottoman-Armenians had assisted the Russian enemy in taking over Van in May of 1915, was a temporary measure, and the Armenians were not moved outside the Ottoman Empire. They were resettled as the Japanese-Americans were resettled within the USA during WWII (with the critical difference that the Japanese-Americans had not betrayed their nation). After the war, Armenians went back to their homes; in fact, the relocated Armenians had begun trickling back before the war had ended. (Over half a million had already moved outside the country, on their own accord, to nations the Ottomans did not control, such as Russia, Iran and Greece.) Many later moved to the Adana region, in order to take advantage of what they hoped would be a new Armenian homeland under French protection. They began their familiar massacring tactics (a practical way to create a homogeneous state is to get rid of the outsiders; this is the same tactic Armenia used in 1992 Karabakh, an act of criminal aggression the world has chosen to ignore), and when the French finally retreated, many Armenians thought it would make good sense not to stick around. It helped that Christian Western nations opened their doors widely. Nevertheless, the Gumru/Alexandropol and later, Lausanne Treaties gave every Ottoman-Armenian the right to return. If the Armenians chose to stay, as the forefathers of the Armenians living in Turkey today, they could have stayed. If they chose not to stay, then they have only themselves to blame for having "lost their ancestral homeland." And let us not allow Mr. Kalayjian off the hook with his dishonest "Martin Luther King" analogy; slavery happens to be a fact. Another fact is that what happened to the Armenians was not a "genocide." "Phantom" tells us, "A Genocide of the Armenian people occured between 1915-1923. This is beyond any reasonable doubt..." What is referred to as a genocide is actually synonymous with the resettlement policy, which ended in 1916, as even some Armenian propagandists concede. The war ended in 1918, and the devastated Ottoman Empire immediately came under British control. For all intents and purposes, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist as an independent state, paving the way for the nationalist movement of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which overturned the Ottoman Empire. When there is no state, there can be no genocide. Was it the British that conducted this "genocide" that lasted from 1918-1923? This statement is the ultimate in dishonesty, but please pay note: it is this very time span that has been spelled out in the resolution before Congress, which goes to show how much some congressional representatives have been willing to conduct a "genocide" on their own credibility, in order to appease their Armenian constituents. "How can a person of good conscience support any program of the ADL so long as the ADL continues to DENY A GENOCIDE and fights against its recognition and commemoration?" Phantom adds. But, of course, the ADL has killed its own credibility as well, by bowing to this very powerful Armenian pressure. John Garabedian adds his voice: "While we’re on the subject of history, Ms. Kaminer, please write to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Dr. Stephen Feinstein of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Michigan, Professors Israel Charny, Yehuda Bauer and countless others to tell them their history degrees are null and void. After all, they certainly must not be true historians if you state that you are leaving the decision to call the 1915 events a genocide to 'true historians' as if this hadn’t already been done so." That is all right; these people do not need Ms. Kaminer to tell them they are not true historians. Finally, Alik informs us that "One day, after the Turkish government recognizes its crime against my people, I wouldn’t mind listening to your philosophical musings about victimhood and original sin. But as long as I am being denied the right to my history, I find them misinformed, arrogant and obscene." Yet, Alik is far from denied the right to his version of history, since that propaganda is the one that has become commonly accepted by people who do not care to examine the real facts, helped along by a terrible prejudice that has been in existence against Turks in the West, which this ugly propaganda certainly perpetuates. It is this very propaganda that may more accurately be termed, "misinformed, arrogant and obscene." .
  September 22, 2007 8:16 AM

• Megan Rees said:

  Responding to the mysterious "Whit" or to Wendy Kaminer at this point feels like trying to have a logical argument with a 3-year-old so I won't waste my energy. I would like to point out that if this "Whit" is so confident in his facts and his words, why does he feel obliged to hide his name and e-mail address? If "grandmother stories" are unreliable, so is an alleged history lesson posted on a message board by someone who doesn't even want to attach his name. And though "Whit" wants to use against me the fact that my great-grandparents survived while their siblings did not, I am quite happy that they did. I am glad to be here on this earth working toward social justice and speaking the truth in the face of crazed and cowardly people like him.
  September 22, 2007 2:24 PM

• Alik said:

  I’d like to point out that in her article, Ms. Kaminer is not denying the truth of the Armenian genocide, and as I indicated in my previous post, the philosophical questions she is asking would not sound so obscene, had Turkey acknowledged its crime and apologized to the Armenian people. Whit’s denialist comments need not be responded to, as the debate on the Armenian genocide has long been over, and the day will come when he – and the likes of him – will be treated as marginal lunatics in the same way Holocaust deniers are.
  September 22, 2007 2:31 PM

• Ara N. said:

  Dear Ms. Kaminer; As said previously, the veracity of the Armenian Genocide is not dependent upon Abe Foxman's appropriate characterization of this event. We all know what happened, Abe Foxman knows what happened, even Whit (the half witt denier above) knows what happened. Also, Armenians are not sitting in their houses and sulking over their victim-hood as you allude to in your article. The points are simple: 1-If ADL is a human rights organization, then it cannot pick and choose about what human rights cause to pursue. 2-If ADL is a human rights organization, it cannot collude with a foreign government (a genocide perpetrator at that) to deny acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.3-It is the actions of the Turkish government, the ADL and the likes, that people like whit and Ahmadinejad feel it is OK to be a genocide denier. 4-Finally, ADL cannot be asked to support a human rights.anti hatred program in a town, since it has a specific agenda that will and has interfered with its human rights mission.
  September 22, 2007 3:45 PM

• Alik said:

  Ms. Kaminer, You seem to think that Armenians have no rights to reparations, since the genocide occurred almost a century ago. Fine, as a lawyer and social critic, you are entitled to your opinion. But I urge you to consider the following: In the context of the ADL helping Turkey’s denialist campaign, no one is talking about reparations. Armenians are rightfully asking for the recognition of their human rights by a human rights organization. In the context of Turkey’s denial of its crime, we are first and foremost seeking moral reparations such as official acknowledgment and apology by the Turkish government. The recognition of the Armenian genocide by the United States and eventually by Turkey might lead to some form of reparations, but I don’t see how this prospect justifies your opposition to the recognition of genocide. Would you oppose a fair trial just because you may not agree with a judge’s sentence? Finally, if and when Turkey acknowledges the Armenian genocide, International Law and negotiations between governments will deal with what follows, and no one will come to you and ask for your lawyer’s insight on reparations. So don’t loose sleep over that.
  September 22, 2007 5:44 PM

• Garen Megerditchian, Toronto said:

  Letter-to-the-Editor Re: “The Armenian Genocide Debate: What’s At Stake?” (September 22, 2007) I am glad Ms. Kaminer delegates “to historians the determination of what constitutes genocide”. In her letter to the Boston Globe, published on September 2, 2007, Deborah Dwork, director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, writes: "The genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks under cover of World War I is a settled matter among historians and genocide scholars. The jury has long been in on this question." But, even though historians and genocide scholars have overwhelmingly determined that the Armenian genocide is not a matter of debate, Ms. Kaminer chooses to gloss over their verdict. Could this have to do with her staunch views on protecting free speech and giving a forum to dissenting opinions? During a recent discussion broadcast on WGBH, Ms. Kaminer noted that she is concerned about the vilification of those few historians who choose to qualify the events of 1915 as “slaughter” or “atrocities”. And yet the Armenian genocide is not the only event in history being questioned by a minority of historians: In the 1988 Zündel trial, David Irving, the notorious Holocaust denier, repeated and defended his claim that until October 1943 Hitler knew nothing about the actual implementation of the Final Solution. He also expressed his evolving belief that the Final Solution involved "atrocities", not systematic murder. Here is a direct quote from Irving: “I don't think there was any overall Reich policy to kill the Jews. If there was, they would have been killed and there would not be now so many millions of survivors. And believe me, I am glad for every survivor that there was.” Out of the 67 attendees of the 2-day “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust”, held in Tehran in December of 2006, many were in fact historians denying the veracity of the Holocaust. But while the Armenian genocide becomes a target of Ms. Kaminer’s famed scepticism, the Holocaust and even the Cambodian genocide easily pass her test of historicity. In a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, in which she chides the ACLU for trending towards a selective approach to free speech, Kaminer writes: “[The ACLU] is not the same organization that once took pride in its costly, principled decision to defend the rights of neo-Nazis to march in a community of Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill.” How can Ms. Kaminer be so sure that these survivors were not mere victims of “atrocities”? Why, in her book "I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional", she takes a leap of faith and describes victims of Khmer Rouge slaughters as “survivors of genocide”? Do not historians who refuse to label the events in Nazi Germany and Cambodia as “genocide” deserve the same respect she bestows upon deniers of the Armenian genocide? Instead of launching a visceral diatribe against the Armenian-American community and qualifying its quest for justice as “political blackmail”, if Wendy Kaminer is so concerned about giving dissenting historians the benefit of the doubt, I suggest she focus on providing a forum to the views of Holocaust deniers; that would be a better use of her time and efforts. After all, who cares about Armenians? The “atrocities” that befell European Jewry are surely more current than the ones Armenians suffered 92 years ago.
  September 23, 2007 1:10 AM

• Whit said:

  . The responses here were predictable. A devastating truth has been reported, and the critics' response has rested upon ignoring the facts completely, and by offering insults. It was the Armenians who committed the systematic extermination campaign of WWI and afterwards, murdering as many "other" Ottomans as the total mortality of Armenians dying from all causes. Even a great friend of the Armenians, General Harbord (of the Harbord Commission), acknowledged these terrible crimes. He did not want to emphasize the Armenians' crimes, because the power structure of his time wished to place the blame on the Ottoman Turks for political purposes, aside from the usual reasons stemming from prejudice. That situation has changed little; it may be even worse today, because the Armenian campaign for extermination is never mentioned, not just in genocide circles (which is expected), but even in normal channels. (Readers are advised to look into the 1919 report of Niles and Sutherland, two Armenian-friendly Americans sent to investigate the situation after the war; their report was suppressed.) Please note that the evidence demonstrating a systematic campaign for extermination by the Ottomans against the Armenians has not been proven. In fact, the opposite is the case: the Ottomans tried to protect the Armenians. Some gendarmes lost their lives defending the Armenians, when lawless and marauding forces swooped down upon them. Where Ottomans committed crimes against Armenians, there are over a thosand cases when they were brought to trial. Some of these criminals were even executed by the Ottoman authorities. These are the facts that disprove a genocide. But when Armenians committed crimes against Ottomans, no Armenians got punished. Their leaders, such as Dro, Antranik and Armen Garo, had their forces plunder, rape and murder at will. This was a systematic and organized campaign, orders coming from the top; the same as when Armenia cleansed those who were different during 1918-20, in Armenia itself. Nobody has addressed this monumental issue. Of course; that is because Armenian genocide proponents operate from a standpoint of dishonesty. Notice how Megan Rees attempts to deflect the issue by complaining that responding to the genuine facts I presented would be "like trying to have a logical argument with a 3-year-old so I won't waste my energy." She then adds that enough personal information has not been provided. Would providing my school and military records and my social security number make my statements any more or less legitimate? Those who are interested in the truth can easily verify the truth on their own. The problem, however, is that the last thing those such as Ms. Rees are interested in is the truth. (As far as her other emotional declaration that "[T]hough 'Whit' wants to use against me the fact that my great-grandparents survived while their siblings did not, I am quite happy that they did," who would not be happy that they survived? Again, an attempt at deflecting the truth. The point was, grandmother stories are not a substitute for real history. The Turks and other victims of the Armenians have plenty of grandmother stories of their own, although the motive of Turkish grandmothers was not to instill hatred, but just to give a plain account. Armenian grandmothers and others have told and sometimes have embellished these stories, teaching their young to hate. For example, an Armenian mother explains to her daughter [at readersdigest.ca/mag/2006/10/hate_to_hope.php] why she is introducing harmful genocide concepts to five-year-old kindergarteners: <i>“You have to put it in their blood early on,” she says, “otherwise they won’t grow up with that fire in their belly to fight for our cause. That’s what we did with you.” “So would I be less loyal to my heritage if I didn’t hate Turks?” I ask her. “Yes,” my mom replies unflinchingly. “So it’s okay for me to hate another human being?” “No, not just anyone,” she says. “But after what they did, how could you not hate a Turk?”</i> And that is unfortunately what "Armenian genocide studies" boil down to (not to mention genocide resolutions introduced in Congress), whether taught by Armenian grandmothers or by the Armenians' fraudulent genocide scholar allies: Hatred. The purposeful propagandists among these groups try to turn their hate program around by accusing the "denialists" (as Alik has referred to me, along with her other compliment, "marginal lunatic"; the follow-up commentator, Ara, adds for good measure: "Whit ...the half witt denier") of hatred, but of course those who are telling the truth about this vicious propaganda have no hatred in their hearts; they are only trying to set the record straight. Garen Megerditchian reports that genocide scholar Deborah Dwork opined that: "The genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks under cover of World War I is a settled matter among historians and genocide scholars. The jury has long been in on this question." Yet genocide scholars have an agenda, and they do not behave in scholarly fashion, which is to seek the truth, and only the truth. Obviously, as an example, when some 150,000 Armenians accompanied the Russians in their retreats (as the propagandist professor, Richard Hovannisian has informed us, among others), and later died in Transcaucasia and elsewhere from famine and disease, and these poor victims are classified as "genocide victims" under the swords of Turks who were not even physically present, something is wrong. The only thing Deborah Dwork proves by making such an inaccurate statement is what a poor scholar she is. (What kind of research has she performed? Has she visited the Ottoman archives? No. Has she looked into the Armenians' systematic extermination campaign of Muslims and Jews? No. She is only consulting one-sided propaganda, which makes her a propagandist.) The Holocaust was a real genocide, and what is referred to as the Armenian genocide was not a real genocide. It was not a real genocide, for one thing, because even the British could not come up with the legitimate evidence during the Malta Tribunal process (1919-21); all they discovered was how much they had been lied to by the Armenian Patriarch and others, and ultimately released every single Ottoman prisoner. Not for reasons of war weariness or British POWs, as Armenian propaganda deceptively tells us, but because they simply could not find any real facts. If there is no evidence, there is no crime. Naturally, Armenian genocide supporters are so desperate to have their falsehood accepted, they sink as low as comparing their non-genocide to a real genocide. That is not an honest way to go about making one's case. And frankly, if there are legitimate historians with track records (instead of hateful anti-Semites) who have issues with the Holocaust, it would be the worst thing in the world to try and shut them up. Do we try to shut up the hateful anti-Turkish crowd who get away with their non-facts? No, and there is no need to. If one has the real facts, one has nothing to be afraid of. David Irving, whom Mr. Megerditchian brings up (apparently in a hardly admirable effort to make legitimate scholars, such as Prof. Guenter Lewy, who could not find the evidence for the Armenian position, be seen on the same level), was shown the error of his ways during his court battle with Deborah Lipstadt. It is those who don't have the facts who resort to character assassination attempts, and who feel the need to get personal. Especially those who live in the United States ought to be very careful about such harmful tactics, because when censorship is implemented, it affects everybody. Isn't it telling that all the respondents, aside from myself, have been genocide proponents? When one side is habitually noisy, and the other side is usually quiet, of course the noisy side is going to get its version out and ultimately accepted, through sheer repetition. But if a version of events becomes "a settled matter" (as the genocide scholar mentioned above put it) through a strategy of force, that becomes a far cry from the truth. .
  September 24, 2007 12:32 AM

• Garo Nazarian said:

  Letter to the Editor ("The Armenian Genocide Debate: What's At Stake", by Wendy Kaminer, 20 September 2007) Dear Editor, I just finished watching the September 19, 2007 episode of WGBH's "Greater Boston with Emily Rooney" TV program, in which Rachel Kaprielian and Wendy Kaminer discuss the latest ADL controversy. At one point during the discussion, Ms. Kaminer says: "I'm agnostic about the question whether you call it a massacre or genocide because I'm not a historian and I really am not well acquainted with this". May I ask why Ms. Kaminer is writing on the topic of the Armenian genocide, if she is not well acquainted with the subject matter?
  September 24, 2007 12:53 AM

• Zareh Sahakian said:

  Mr/Ms Whit seems convinced that living in fantasy is the same as living in reality. Fantasy is when one convinces him/herself that a lie repeated many times can turn into a reality: One of such lies is the myth that Armenians killed Turks en masse. Such notion can only be a fantasy concocted by the leadership of successive Turkish governments to put the blame on the victim, the being: the bigger the lie the bigger the blame can be. The most amusing part of this ill conceived lie is that when it comes to numbers killed, the Turks quickly point out that there were not many Armenians living in he Ottoman Empire, and those provinces that they did live in Armenians constituted small minorities, overwhelmed by majority Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian Muslims. Now, add to that the fact that all those Muslims had the right to bear arms and the Armenians were forbidden to own any weapons. The Whits of the modern Turkey wants the public to believe that unarmed minorities were capable of slaughtering Turks who were armed to the teeth. Mr/Ms Whit seems incapable to educate him/herself by reading the verdict of well known genocide scholars, even the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) which was commissioned by both Turkish and Armenian negotiators, seems to evade Whit's attention. Whit and Co. can perhaps find solace in the archives of the Imperial German archives, an entity that was actually an ally to the Ottoman Turkey in WW1. There can be no accusations of anti-Ottoman propaganda here, the archival material sent to Berlin form Turkey was for internal German government consumption only. Perhaps those who really want to know the truth can objectively regard these official correspondences at face value and come to their own conclusion. A collection of such archives can be found at the website: armenocide.com Whit can do well in getting educated by cold hard realities and snap out of fantasy world. Who knows perhaps he too will lobby for the passage of the genocide resolution in the US congress.
  September 24, 2007 1:16 AM

• Zareh Sahakian said:

  What I would like to ask Ms. Kaminer is why does she not see the compensation issue as legitimate? I heard her in the TV interview where she just arbitrarily says compensation should not go beyond two generations. Not realizing perhaps that there still are survivors of this "so long ago crime", and these survivors are living amongst first generation post-genocide children. Under these circumstances Ms. Kaminer's personal "statute of limitations" sounds even more ridiculous, not to mention that she does not provide any legal arguments for imposing limitations for compensation for a crime that witnessed the uprooting and systematic extermination of an entire nation in their own ancestral homeland. Does Ms. Kaminer perhaps confuse the Armenian genocide issue with that of a fish market dispute? She uses the words "follow the money" to convey her dismay about Armenians pursuing the genocide cause. Why then is it OK for Jewish compensation from Germany? Why do we read editorials rightfully praising the return of stolen Jewish art object to the heirs of Holocaust victims? why is there no issues of "following the money" in those cases? The return of a stolen painting is praiseworthy, but Armenians would be condemned for demanding the return of a stolen homeland and properties. Why is she so openly biased? and more importantly how can she assume to have the right to insult Armenians?
  September 25, 2007 3:45 AM

• Kevork K Kalayjian Jr said:

  Victim Discrimination In a letter dated September 25, 2007, eight former Secretaries of State, including Madeleine Albright, James Baker III, Warren Christopher, Laurence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Jr. Henry Kissinger, Collin Powell and George Schultz have urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to prevent the Armenian Genocide resolution from reaching the House Floor. Never have such distinguished public servants acted with such moral cowardice since the current Secretary of the State presented the same arguments during a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on State-Foreign Operations in March 21, 2007. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questions the Holocaust we as Americans stand up for human rights and historical truth, but when the Turkish government denies the Armenian genocide, we timidly maintain that “U.S. policy is to encourage reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia”. Why don’t we encourage reconciliation between Iran and Israel over the Holocaust debate? If the German government denied that the Holocaust took place, would the same Secretaries of State send a similar urgent appeal to the Speaker of the House? Of course not, it would be absurd. There was no Israel when the Holocaust happened, and there was no Armenia when the Armenian Genocide was taking place during World War I. Most of the Armenian Genocide survivors and their descendants are right here in the United States. It is alarming to see how much political clout an Islamist Government’s lobbyists can buy in Washington at the cost of our nation’s moral integrity. What we can do about it is to get in touch with our Representatives and ask them not to sell America’s soul to the highest bidder. Bring the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H. Res. 106) to the House floor and vote for it! Kevork K Kalayjian Jr
  September 28, 2007 2:05 AM

• Not Whit said:

  I shall not comment on Ms.Kaminer's article because she speaks from ignorance. Let it suffice to say that her approach is pseudo-epistomological, where she picks out of thin air some categorical imperative of her liking, and then marches on to prove her "logical" conclusion. An example will serve to demonstrate her general syllogistic approach: Major premiss: A genocide is genocide when the victims are alive. Minor premiss: The victims are not alive. Conclusion: The Armenian Genocide is not genocide. The case of Whit is different. He speaks from the heart, but reaches a heartless conclusion. I shall not dwell on his spurious historical ruminations. Others, more able than I, have already responded to them in this forum. Let it suffice to say there is not a whit of truth in Whit's history. What interests me and I would like to comment on is his motivation. Granted, no one wants to admit that one's grandparents were blood thirsty murderers, and will naturally argue against such a depiction.And Whit follows this pattern faithfully. But, I believe, there is more that informs Whit's outlook. I suspect Whit was "educated" (should I say indoctrinated?) in the elementary and in high-school studying the history books published by the Turkish Education Ministry. Where in every form it is declared that "while the Ottoman Empire was in a life and death struggle, treacherous (kahbe) Armenians stabbed them in the back. Despite the fact that it was the Armenian troops in the region of Kars who saved the life of Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, when following his ill conceived plans, he suffered a crushing defeat by the Russians. Enver's gratitude was expressed later by disarming the Armenians and putting them in Work Battalions as a prelude to their extermination. I also believe Whit and his/her ilk are remaining true to their oath, which they recited every morning in class: The oath, similar to the SS oath, stated: "I am a Turk, I am right..." and ended with "let my existence be a gift to the Turkish existence". Whit is a part of a generation who was nursed by ultranationalist feelings and a yearning for a rebirth of a Turkish Empire under a PanTuranic flag. In criminal trials a precedent counts. Whit claims the facts of the genocide in fact were the reverse: the Armenians massacred the Turks. This is a true reach. It can't be denied that there were local uprisings where Armenians avenged themselves, but this can hardly be compared to the butchery suffered by the Armenians in the hands of the Turks, directed by Talat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior. While historically there is no precedent for the Armenians committing large scale atrocities against any nation. The Turkish History is replete with mass murder of entire populations. In 1800's Greeks, Bulgarians and other Balkan people bear witness to this. Nor, the Christian people were the only victims: Syrians, Arabs, Persians,Iraqis, Lebanese and practically all of the people of the Middle East suffered from Turkish bloodshed. As a result, there is only one country at present bordering Turkey who is truly friendly with the Turks. The rest, might make a show of friendship but that is only for economic reasons. The memory of the Turkish cruelty survives. Much is written about Jews not being massacred by the Turks at that period. In fact just credit is given to the Ottomans for giving shelter to the Sephardic Jews escaping from the Spanish Inquisition. However, it should not be forgotten that during the Second World War, Jews as well as the Armenians and the Greeks were levied a special tax which exceeded their net worth. Unable to pay, they were exiled to Askale, in the interior of Anatolia. If the German advance to the Caucasian oil fields had succeeded, Turkey would enter the war on the side of Germany as before in the First World War. If that had occurred, tnere should be no doubt that those people in Askale and all the Jews in Turkey would have been exterminated following the Nazi example of the Holocaust, which in turn was inspired by the Armenian Genocide. I have a wager for Whit. I bet that if Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which makes mentioning the Armenian Genocide a criminal offense, is repealed- many Turkish voices will rise to confirm the Armenian Genocide. Whit is also being unfair to the Turks who risked their lives in 1915-23 by sheltering their Armenian neighbors and the orphans. As in all nations, there is a small group of people who are evil and an even smaller group, led by inner convictions does the right thing, The large majority in the middle is indifferent and can be swayed one way or the other. Consider September 6,1955 when a Turkish mob ran amok raping, looting and burning on the fabricated excuse that the windows of Ataturk's childhood home were broken by a bomb thrown by Greeks. The outcome of this episode was mass emigration of Greeks, such that they number now only a couple of thousands in Istanbul. Whit's always right and never wrong approach to his country smacks of ultranationalism where the Turks are the master race. Bossing over smaller nations under their rule does not make Turks masters. Mastery is achieved by getting civilized and respecting human values. Although the Ottoman Empire was not the paragon of virtue, in its peak it had at least a little moderation and restraint. But the tide turned, and: "Things fall apart; the center can not hold; "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere "The ceremony of innocence is drowned; "The best lack all conviction, while the worst "Are full of passionate intensity."
  October 5, 2007 7:07 PM

• Kevork K Kalayjian Jr said:

  Bush OK’s Another Genocide by Opposing Armenian Genocide Resolution The last time a human rights issue created so much soul searching in America was probably September 22, 1862, when Abraham Lincoln signed a presidential decree for the emancipation of the slaves. The House Foreign Relations Committee vote 27/21 on H. R. 106, acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, is the emancipation of the survivors of the victims of the genocide. This is a giant step forward for more reverence to human dignity here in the United States of America and in the context of our image in the world both for our allies and for our adversaries. This resolution is the greatest gesture of love and respect to the Turkish people. Those who advocate denial treat the Turkish people as inferior being not able to handle the truth. Our NATO brother-in-arms should know that, just as David Kaczynski brought his brother Theodore John Kaczynski (The Unabomber) to justice, America will not stand idle for deniers of Genocide. By opposing this resolution, President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, (the axis of evil) , are giving the green light to the Turkish government to go ahead and commit another genocide against other minorities in Turkey. All the necessary ingredients are there; there is the PKK which has been declared a terrorist organization; the Kurdish minority living in Turkey could easily be accused of supporting the PKK, George Bush, just like Hitler, has given his blessings to the Turkish generals, by virtually saying: who after all remembers the Armenians? Opponents of this human rights issue are bigots and racists who do not think that the Turkish people have the common sense and the decency to be treated as civilized human beings. Instead, these deniers are treating the Turks as if they are the ‘Barbarian of the Middle East’ who cannot be expected to behave like people living in Western democracies. Hence, while we do not deny the Holocaust because we have bases and enlisted personnel in Germany, these people make us believe that we should treat the Turks as sub-human barbarians and let their governments deny a crime so that we can use their bases. What’s next? The 9/11 attacks never happened? Or, was it a civil war? While other countries are criticized, sanctioned, and attacked when they conquer a neighboring country, according to the US State Department it is OK for the Turkish governments to attack and conquer half of Cyprus. Why? Because, we have to appease our ‘Barbarian Friends’ so that we can keep our bases in their country. It is a shame that the present administration still opposes this important human rights achievement. It is a disgrace that there are still people amongst us who see no harm in denying a crime for profit. This administration and its supporters marched into the White House as the defenders of the faith and the family values, they turned up to be a pack of wolves ready to sell America’s honor. I am proud that my representative, Congressman Eliot Engel, voted for this resolution. I urge you to make sure that H. R. comes to the House floor and that your representative votes for it!
  October 22, 2007 8:12 PM

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