“ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”: A COLOSSAL MISTAKE BY BIDEN, WITH ASSAULT ON HISTORY, LAW AND TURKISH-AMERICAN RELATIONS

29/04/2021

By Ferruh DEMIRMEN Ph.D., - The announcement by US President Joe Biden on April 24 designating this day as “Armenian Remembrance Day” and recognizing “Armenian genocide” will pass into history as one of the most inane and short-sighted decisions by a US administration.

Driven by a deep-seated bigotry, and in what was total capitulation to a well-financed political lobby, it was a reckless act oblivious to how the decision would impact Turkish-American relations. It was putting the interests of Russia-partner Armenia (population nearly 3 million) and the Armenian lobby ahead of Turkey – a NATO member and putatively a major US ally. There is little doubt that the US relations with Turkey will take a deep wound.

Likewise, any softening of relations between Turkey and Armenia has been pushed back to an indefinite future.

There are already talks by the opposition leaders in Turkey about closing the Incirlik military base and questioning Turkey’s membership in NATO. There are even calls to have the Turkish Parliament declare the “Native-American genocide” and – in reference to the dropping of two atomic bombs in World War II – the “Japanese genocide.” Also calls for “Iraq genocide,” the “Syrian genocide,” and possibly the “Black American genocide.”

Reference to Istanbul as “Constantinople” in Biden’s statement also drew criticism.

Biden’s aversion to Turkish President Erdoğan’s style of leadership, and his anti-Turkish stance going back to the 1974 Cyprus events are no secret. When Turkey intervened in Cyprus in 1974 to prevent the takeover of the Cyprus government by a military junta in an attempt to form a union with Greece, Biden, then a member of the Senate Foreign Relations, praised the Greek Cypriots and told them, “If someday the Greeks beat the hell out of the Turks, they’ll be right.”

In an apparent attempt not to alienate modern Turkey, Biden’s statement characterized the 1915 Armenian events as “Ottoman-era.” But the fact that he was referring to Turkish people was obvious.

Biden also paid special tribute to Armenian immigrants (the “chosen people”?) for enriching the United States “in countless ways.” The Turkish immigrants, obviously, didn’t deserve such praise.

But broadside to Turkish immigrants aside, the damage to Turkish-American relations was only a collateral damage from Biden’s statement. More reprehensible, was his amateurish recognition of “Armenian genocide,” together with his citing of “1.5 million” Armenian deaths during “deportation,” while disregarding the massacre of Turkish and Muslim civilians – all taken from the Armenian lobby’s playbook.

It was playing politics with “genocide,” and all the assertions in his statement are outright insult to history and law.

There was a bitter irony in his call for a world unstained for “bigotry and intolerance,” and having a “shared resolve to prevent future atrocities.”

Just 2 days before Biden’s announcement, on April 22, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, issued a statement that the crime of genocide must be decided by a relevant court, while on April 24, the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill said that nobody in the Ottoman Empire had exterminated the Christian minorities, and that there was harmony between the religious communities within the empire.

Before Biden issued his April 24 statement, this author sent an urgent, hard-copy letter to President Biden and VP Kamala Harris, delivered to the White House on the morning of April 22. It was an attempt to enlighten Biden about the unsupportable allegations of “Armenian genocide” so that he wouldn’t make a colossal mistake 2 days later. Regrettably, the mistake was made, and a campaign promise to the Armenian lobby was fulfilled.

What follows is the copy of the letter sent to Biden and Harris.      

Letter sent to White House on the issue of “Armenian genocide”

Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris,

Firstly, I take this opportunity to personally congratulate you on your election as the President and Vice President on November 3, 2020.

I decided to write you this letter to bring to your attention certain facts on the so-called “Armenian genocide” that you may be tempted to recognize on April 24. Thanks to an aggressive, all-out campaign by the Armenian lobby and its supporters, in particular those in California, you have been receiving many letters and appeals recently to do just that.

These letters include those you received in the past 2-3 months from 38 senators and more than 100 Congresspersons – the politicians that are essentially in the pockets of the Armenian lobby - and are influenced by a deep-seated anti-Turkish, anti-Muslim prejudice. So, you are under great pressure.

Among the die-hard supporters of the Armenian lobby, nobody matches the enthusiasm of Turk-hater Senator Robert Menendez, whose photo-ops with the lobby representatives grace the Internet, and whose recent marriage to a lady of Armenian descent marks a blissful occasion. But Congressman Adam Schiff of California is a close match – and what I find most regretful is that he is a Stanford graduate, my alma mater!

In any case, before you act, please consider the facts in the “FACT” document below. In so doing, I implore you to set aside the currently strained relations between the U.S. and Turkey, and weigh only facts for the sake of truth and justice.

In essence, the recognition of “Armenian genocide” by you would be big mistake, and would not only unjustly vilify Turks, it would insult history and international law.

Politics – which are transitory - should be set aside when the issue under consideration is a hefty and ponderous one, in this case the alleged “Armenian genocide” that refers to events that took place more than a century ago, at a time and place the U.S. politicians know little about. The scholars who support the “genocide” narrative refuse to engage in debates with their counterparts on the other side. And the Armenian side, instead of adjudicating its “genocide” claim in a court of law, resorts to day-in, day-out propaganda.

Lastly, please be informed that, when the British searched in 1921 the U.S. State Department files in Washington D.C. for evidence to prosecute the 144 high Ottoman government officials held captive on the Island of Malta on charges of atrocities against the Armenians (the Malta Tribunal), the State Department officials warned them not to use the information supplied to them in a court of law. The documents in the files included diplomatic dispatches sent from Istanbul (then Constantinople) by Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr., and the State Department officials knew the dispatches had little probative value in a court of law. The ambassador’s dispatches, in support of the British war propaganda, had little credibility. 

Most respectfully,

Ferruh Demirmen, Ph.D., Stanford Univ.

Katy, Texas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    

FACT: “Armenian genocide” is an allegation not supported by history and law

Ferruh Demirmen, Ph.D.

As Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels famously said, “Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth,” thus creating the "illusion of truth." This, in fact, is where we stand as April 24 approaches and a cacophony of “opinions” appear in the American media advocating the recognition of “Armenian genocide” by President Biden.

The recent “open letter” addressed to President Biden by a number historians representing “International Christian Concern,” those sent by the supporters of the Armenian lobby (reportedly more than a million!), and the letters sent to Biden by 38 senators and more than 100 Congresspersons in the past 2-3 months, are prominent examples.

Sure enough, it is Turkey-bashing time, Christian solidarity, and musical chairs to the likes of Senator Ted Cruz and his Evangelical crowd. As well, perhaps, to satisfy the anti-Turkish gusto of those like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Congressman Adam Schiff of California.

After all, the Armenians have been reminding us that they were the “First Christian nation,” and so, why not stand by them, and while doing so, vilify Turks as well!

Essence of the Matter

The premise underlying “Armenian genocide,” that the Ottoman Empire undertook a campaign to exterminate Armenians, and by extension, other Christian minorities during 1915-1923, is manifestly false. Ethnic and religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed much autonomy in their religious, social and cultural activities, and none were forced to Islamize. For centuries, they all kept their religious and ethnic identities, and prospered in trade and craftsmanship. Many of them sent their children to Europe for their education.

Armenians, in particular, were considered a “loyal nation,” and held high positions in the government. There were 22 ministers, 33 deputies and 7 ambassadors of Armenian origin during the Ottoman era, and 29 prominent members of the Armenian community were awarded the honorary title “Pasha” (general). As late as 1913, the foreign minister in the Ottoman cabinet was an Armenian named Gabriel Noradukyan.

Noteworthy also is the fact that the Ottoman Turks extended warm welcome to Jews that were persecuted during the Spanish inquisition in the 15^th century, and Turkish diplomats saved thousands of Jews from the Nazi terror during World War II. Turkey also invited and welcomed hundreds of Jewish scholars and scientists who had fled Nazi Germany and Austria. In fact, Turkey probably did significantly more than the US and the UK in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

More in that thread, Turkey was one of the few countries that came to the aid of Ireland during the Great Famine between 1845 and 1852. Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Majid not only donated money, but also sent three to five ships full of food against the wishes of the English which attempted to block the ships. Helping starving people across the seas is real humanity.

Given such background, it should be self-evident that Turks are not the kind of people that would perpetrate genocidal crime against minorities. The “Armenian genocide” accusation is fraught with fallacies, is not supported by historical facts, and is contravened by international law. Without belaboring details, the following additional points should be borne in mind.

Act of Defense

 

1. The period 1915-1918 during which “Armenian genocide” allegedly took place in Ottoman Anatolia was a period of war when the Ottoman army was fighting on all fronts – east, west and south. Goaded and misled by Western imperial powers, in particular the tsarist Russia to the north, Armenians took arms against their government, formed armed militias, and joined the invading enemy forces. It was indisputably an act of treason. The momentous act was the storming of the city of Van on April 20, 1915, when most of the city was burned and well-armed Armenian units, many wearing military uniforms, took the city and started a mayhem of atrocities against the Muslim residents. The storming and rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a child’s play by comparison. On May 17, the advancing Russian army just walked in to occupy the city. Soon, there was uprising in 23 locations in Anatolia.
2. On May 27, 1915 the government decided to relocate the Armenian population in the eastern part of the Anatolia to Greater Syria, away from the war zone. Armenians living in the western part of Anatolia were exempted from Relocation, as were the elderly, the sick, orphaned children, government employees, and Catholic and Protestant Armenians. As Prof. Edward J. Erickson notes, the Relocation was a legitimate security measure; the Ottoman reaction was responsive rather than premeditated and pre-planned. There was no intent on the part of the Ottoman government to kill or harm the refugees. On the contrary, instructions from the government clearly specified that the refugees must be protected during and after Relocation. This is borne out by the fact that in 1915-16 the Ottoman government held a series of court-martials and convicted 1673 persons for disobeying government orders regarding the safety of the refugees. The penalties handed included 67 death sentences. But it was war time, and casualties and tragic events took place on both sides. No government who had the intent to kill or “exterminate” the refugees would severely punish criminals that harmed this group.
3. The lack of intent to harm Armenian refugees is corroborated by none other than Hovhannes Katchaznouni (1868-1938), the first Prime Minister of Independent Armenia. http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/1923Manifesto-Hovhannes.htm

At the Dashnak (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, ARF) convention in Bucharest in April 1923, Katchaznouni issued a Manifesto in which he stated that, by revolting against their government, Armenians had lost sense of reality, that the Ottoman government decided to relocate the Armenian population for defensive purposes, and that that was the right decision. He blamed the Dashnak Party for the unfortunate events that followed.

1. Likewise, in a “Note Verbal,” Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary-General of the League of Nations, on March 1, 1920, stated that “in Turkey… massacres [were] carried out by irregular bands [of Muslims] who were entirely outside the control of the central Turkish Government.”
2. By virtue of Article II of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, the lack of intent on the part of the Ottoman government to harm Armenian refugees in itself is sufficient to refute genocide allegations. The Convention stipulates that, for a crime to be identified as genocide, there must be special intent (dolus specialis) – a requirement echoed by the International Court of Justice in its 2015 Croatian vs. Serbia judgment.
3. Further, the fact that only a certain portion of Armenians in Anatolia was subjected to Relocation belies the claim that Armenians were targeted because of their religion or ethnicity – a requirement enshrined in the Genocide Convention (Article II).
4. The right of a government to take measures against an armed rebellion is a universally recognized right. That is especially so in time of war, e.g., the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II – who, incidentally, had not rebelled against their government, and the U.S. was not under enemy occupation.

 

Human Tragedy

 

1. World War I was an event where Muslims and other ethnic groups suffered jointly – a shared tragedy. It was time of misery for all ethnic and religious groups. The war conditions brought misery and took their toll during Relocation.
2. The claim that 1.5 million Armenians died during Relocation is a grotesque - to put it more bluntly - ridiculous exaggeration. This claim is already contravened by the fact that, according to the Ottoman state census, the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire before World War I was approximately 1.3 million. Based on research by Turkish Historical Society (Prof. Yusuf Halaçoğlu), the number of Armenians subjected to Relocation was 438,750, of which 382,150 (87%) safely arrived at the destination. Those that died during the Relocation numbered 56,600, 10,000 of which were killings due to lawlessness. Most of the Armenian losses resulted from fighting on war fronts (some 200,000 according to the League of Nations) and war-related deprivation such as disease, chaos, and famine. When the Russians were briefly defeated by Turks and forced to retreat, 300,000 Armenians fled to Russia and an unknown number to Iran, with major losses on route. In the First Republic of Armenia, 1918-1920, 195,000 Armenians died due to deprivation.
3. Resolutions or narratives that mourn Armenian losses during World War I never mention Armenian atrocities. Between 1914 and 1921 armed Armenian militias killed in cold blood more than 518,000 civilian Muslims in Anatolia. According to Prof. Justin McCarthy, the total Muslim losses in eastern Anatolia during 1912-22 were nearly 1.2 million. In the Ottoman city of Van alone, located in present-day southeastern Turkey, 60% of the Muslim population (mostly Kurds) were massacred by Armenian revolutionaries ahead of the advancing Russian army in April and May of 1915 – an event that triggered the Relocation orders. The calamity brought upon Muslims - in particular Turkish - civilians by Armenian militias is a story untold in Europe and America. Those that committed such atrocities were not brought to justice.
4. The viciousness of Armenian atrocities was also reported by General James Harbord, Chief of American Military Mission (1919) sent by President Woodrow Wilson on a fact-finding mission to the war-ridden zone. The general reported that the Turks and Kurds were massacred by Armenian irregulars, commenting that “most of the victims in the sectarian bloodbath were Muslim.”
5. Likewise, Captain E. Niles and A. Sutherland of Near East Relief, sent by the U.S. Government to investigate relief aid to Armenians, reported in 1919 that, “Villages said to have been Armenian were still standing whereas Mussulman villages were completely destroyed," and that, “Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape, arson, and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Muslim population.”
6. The son of a preacher, and a devout Christian, President Wilson himself was a bigot who called Turks “Mohammedan Apaches” and wanted to establish a Christian “Armenian Mandate” in eastern Anatolia where Armenians constituted less than 20% of the population. Based on General Harbord’s report, the U.S. Senate on June 1, 1920 rejected President Wilson’s request for an Armenian Mandate.
7. The U.S. Congress Report 266, American Mission to Armenia, April 13, 1920 (approved unanimously), stated: “We know, however, so much to be a fact that the Armenians in the new State [First Republic of Armenia] are carrying on operations in view of exterminating the Mussulman element in obedience to orders from the Armenian corps commander. We have had copies of their orders under our eyes. That the Armenians of Erivan are following a policy of extermination against the Mussulman and this wave of sanguinary savagery has spread right up to our frontier is also established by the fact of the presence within our borders of numerous Mussulman fleeing from death on the other side.”
8. In fact, according to Russian historian A.A. Lalaian, in the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920), 195,000 Armenians, 200,000 Turks and 24,500 Kurds perished due to deprivation and massacres under a brutal regime.

 

Scholarly Opinion

 

1. While the Armenian side argues that “Armenian genocide” is established based on scholarly work, it conveniently ignores the opposing scholarly opinion. In 1985, 69 U.S. historians and researchers passed a unanimous resolution, addressed to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and published in New York Times and The Washington Post, refuting Armenian allegations. http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/69histors.htm

These were academicians specializing in Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies. Among them was the eminent British historian Prof. Dr. Bernard Lewis. The declaration stated that the 1915 events were an inter-communal strife, not an act of violence planned by the Ottoman government. Prof. Lewis, deceased at age 103 in 2018, also noted on separate occasions that there is absolutely no similarity between the Jewish Holocaust and what is claimed to be “Armenian genocide.”

1. In 2011, 124 Turkish academicians signed a statement supporting the 1985 declaration.
2. In 2009 French writer Yves Bénard, who extensively visited eastern Turkey and researched the subject, has also concluded that the 1915 events were an inter-communal strife. He stated, in his book entitled Divergences turco-arméniennes (2017), that he had originally thought that genocide had occurred, but that he changed his mind after his research. Bénard has also observed that more Turks were massacred by Armenians than vice versa.

 

UN Convention and International Law

 

1. The Convention on Genocide stipulates, in Article VI, that the term “genocide” is a legal construct, and that any determination as to this crime can only be made by a competent tribunal. In other words, a court verdict is required. Yet, there exists no court verdict on “Armenian genocide.” Without such a court verdict, the allegation of “Armenian genocide” is baseless. Further, individuals, not groups or nations, commit the crime of genocide.
2. In addition to dealing with the freedom of expression, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has also ruled, in its 2013 lower chamber decision, later confirmed by the Grand Chamber in 2015 on appeal (re: Switzerland vs. Perinçek case), that “Armenian genocide,” apart from the fact that it is a controversial issue among scholars, absent a court verdict, remains unproven. The high court made a distinction between the 1915 events and the court-proven Holocaust.
3. In 2016 France’s Constitutional Council, while also making a distinction between the 1915 events and Holocaust, underlined that governments and parliaments have no authority to judge genocide.
4. The Genocide Convention entered into force in 1951. Under the nulla poena sine lege principle of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, retroactive application of criminal law is inadmissible, a position also held by the US Supreme Court.
5. Three times in the past, in 2000, 2007 and 2015, the UN has stated unequivocally that it has not taken a position on “Armenian genocide,” i.e., that it does not recognize it.

                                                             

Malta Tribunal

 

1. Although there exists no court verdict on “Armenian genocide,” there was a court attempt after World War I. In 1919 the British, an occupying force in Istanbul, relying on Armenian informants, arrested 144 high-ranking Ottoman officials and took them to the island of Malta for trial on charges of killing Armenians (“Malta Tribunal”). Although the British had full access to all relevant documents, including the archives in Istanbul and the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C., they could not find any incriminating evidence against the detainees. Reported the British Embassy in Washington on July 13, 1921 to Foreign Office in London: “I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein [in U.S. State Department files] which could be used as evidence against the Turks who are being detained for trial in Malta.” After two years and four months of investigation the British dropped all charges against the accused in Malta. The detainees were set free and returned to Turkish soil. In effect, the Malta trial had vindicated Turks. The Armenian narrative on World War I is remarkably silent on the Malta Tribunal.
2. Well aware of this historical embarrassment, the British government to date has refused to recognize “Armenian genocide” – a position enunciated by Baroness Ramsey in the House of Lords in 1999, and again by Lord Malloch Brown in 2008.

 

Additional Points

 

1. As noted by Prof. Heath W. Lowry, “Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story,” a source on which the “Armenian genocide” assertions rely to a large extent, is a book full of distortions and falsifications. Henry Morgenthau was the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from November 1913 to February 1916. He used racist slurs against Turks, calling them “primitive,” possessing “poisonous blood.” In contrast, he profusely praised “Christian” Armenians. The book was written not by Morgenthau himself, but a Pulitzer Prize winner journalist Burton J. Hendricks. It is a racist, overtly anti-Turkish, anti-German product that contains major contradictions with the ambassador’s own Diary that paints Turks in a more balanced light. The enormity of the injustice perpetrated by the “Morgenthau's Story” was such that the Associated Press war correspondent George A. Schreiner, a contemporary of Morgenthau, upon reading the book felt obliged to write a highly critical letter to the ambassador in December 1918 in which he stated, eloquently, “… Nor did you possess in Constantinople that omniscience and omnipotence you have arrogated unto yourself in the book. In the interest of truth, I will also affirm that you saw little of the cruelty you fasten upon the Turks. Besides that, you have killed more Armenians than ever lived in the districts of the uprising. The fate of those people was sad enough without having to be exaggerated as you have done. I have probably seen more of the Armenian affair than all the Armenian attaches of the American embassy together… To be perfectly frank with you, I cannot applaud your efforts to make the Turks the worst being on earth, and the German worse, if that be possible.” When the British weighed evidence against the Malta detainees, upon advice of the US State Department, they disregarded the “Morgenthau’s Story” as being unreliable.
2. Equally disturbed about Morgenthau’s portrayal of Turks, was his successor Rear Admiral Marc L. Bristol, who served as U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey between 1919 and 1927. Unlike Morgenthau, Adm. Bristol travelled extensively in the region. In a letter dated March 28, 1921 addressed to James L. Barton D, Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Adm. Bristol wrote: "[R]eports are being freely circulated in the United States that the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false. The circulation of such false reports in the United States, without refutation, is an outrage and is certainly doing the Armenians more harm than good. … Why not tell the truth about the Armenians in every way?" Interestingly, those who use Ambassador Morgenthau to smear Turks never mention the findings of the ambassador’s successor, Admiral Bristol.
3. The British also disregarded as evidence for the Malta Tribunal the “Andonian Files,” another major source for Armenian assertions. These "files," first printed in early 1920, allegedly comprise telegraphic evidence in the possession of a then-unknown Armenian named Aram Andonian attesting to the central Ottoman Government’s instructions to massacre Armenian refugees. Andonian has purportedly received the telegraphic evidence in 1915 from a minor Ottoman official named Naim Bey in Aleppo, Syria, and added his own “notes.” The documents have been established by Prof. Dr. Türkkaya Ataöv to be outright fakeries. There was no Ottoman official named Naim Bey in Aleppo during the years in question, and the documents are full of factual mistakes, omissions and forged signatures, e.g., official codes, and the difference between the rumi (Julian) and the miladi (Gregorian) calendars. When pressed, Andonian subsequently could not produce the originals of the telegraphic “evidence,” and in 1937 admitted that his product was not a historical work, but a propaganda piece (as was Lord Bryce’s “Blue Book”).
4. Dashnak Armenians collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Articles published in 1939 entitled “Der Deutsch-Armenischen Gesellschaft” in German magazine “Mitteilungsblatt” the relationship between the Hitler government and the Dashnaks (ARF) was laid out. In return for the collusion in exterminating the Jews, Hitler would help the Armenians establish their own independent state in eastern Turkey. The 22,000-men-strong Armenian 812th Battalion (“Armenian Legion”) was created by the Wehrmacht in 1941 and was commanded by General Dro Drastamat Kanayan, a war criminal on his own from the time he was a guerrilla leader in eastern Anatolia and later the army chief in the short-lived First Republic of Armenia in 1918-1920. What attracted Armenians to the Nazis was that they were considered an “Aryan” race. Armenian recruits also joined the Panzer Corps and Gestapo in France and Germany.
5. The infamous “Hitler quote” (“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians”) attributed to Adolf Hitler, as claimed by the Armenian side, is a forgery and was rejected into evidence during the Nuremberg trials post World War II. Interestingly, this “minor detail” is not mentioned by those who use the Hitler quote to shore up their genocide claims. Transcripts of the speech made by Hitler on August 22, 1939, 10 days before the invasion of Poland and accepted into evidence at Nuremberg, do not contain such a quote.
6. Between 1973 and 1987, the Armenian ASALA and JCAG terrorist groups committed 239 acts of terrorism that resulted in the massacre of at least 70 and the wounding of 524 innocent people. 30 of the attacks occurred on American soil. Of the dead, 58 were Turkish, of which 31 were diplomats. The terrorists also took 105 hostages. To a lesser degree, Armenian terrorism continued into the 1990s. Distinguished professors such as the deceased Stanford Shaw of UCLA, Heath Lowry of Princeton University, and Justin McCarthy of Louisville University received death threats or have had their homes bombed. The perpetrators of these crimes, if caught, have usually received light sentences; some received legal help, even plaudits, from Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora. When considering “right or wrong” or human rights vis-à-vis the Armenian issue, can such despicable acts of terrorism be overlooked or brushed aside?
7. The Pew surveys have repeatedly shown that Armenia is the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, and also the most ant-Semitic country among non-Muslim countries in the world.

 

Conclusion

 

Given the account above, there is no justification for recognizing the so-called “Armenian genocide,” firstly because it does not reflect historical facts, and secondly, the recognition would be in breach of a U.N. Convention, to which the U.S. is a signatory. The recognition would disregard the rulings of the highest judicial bodies in Europe. These rulings underline the fact that “Armenian genocide” is unproven, has no similarity to Holocaust, and that governments and parliaments do not have the authority to judge the crime of genocide, i.e., this is the bailiwick of competent courts.

 

Unlike in the case the Rwandan, Srebrenica and Cambodia genocides, there is no determination by a competent tribunal as to “Armenian genocide.”

In its substance, the allegation of “Armenian genocide” is morally and unjustly offensive for Turks. It is a racist assertion that is promoted by a well-funded, well-organized Armenian lobby exploiting a religious (“Armenians first Christian nation”) and deeply-rooted ethnic prejudice in America. It is divisive, and overlooks the atrocities committed against civilian Muslims by Armenian terrorists during World War I, and even afterwards.

One good way to settle the dispute on Armenian allegations is for the Armenian side to open all its archives e.g., in Yerevan, Boston and Jerusalem. Unlike the Turkish archives, which are open to all, the Armenian archives are closed.

Further, if the Armenian side is sincere about its “genocide” allegations, it should litigate its case in a court of law. To date, it has refrained from doing so; instead, running an aggressive propaganda campaign to influence the public and politicians.

Respectfully yours,

 

Ferruh Demirmen, Ph.D.

ferruh@demirmen.com