Haaretz
Adar2 19, 5765
April 24 will mark the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and the Armenian government is
holding an international conference in the capital of Yerevan, dedicated
to the memory of the more than a million Armenians murdered by the Turks.
I was also invited, and I decided to attend. This month will also see the
Hebrew publication of Prof. Yair Auron's eye-opening and stomach churning
book, "Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide," Maba Publishing, which
has already been highly praised overseas in its English-language
edition.
As opposed to many other nations, Israel has never
recognized the murder of the Armenian people, and in effect lent a hand to
the deniers of that genocide. Our official reactions moved in the vague,
illusory realm between denial to evasion, from "it's not clear there
really was genocide" to "it's an issue for the historians," as Shimon
Peres once put it so outrageously and stupidly.
There are two main
motives for the Israeli position. The first is the importance of the
relationship with Turkey, which for some reason continues to deny any
responsibility for the genocide, and uses heavy pressure worldwide to
prevent the historical responsibility for the genocide to be laid at its
door. The pressure does work, and not only Israel, but other countries as
well do the arithmetic of profits and loss. The other motive is that
recognition of another nation's murder would seem to erode the uniqueness
of the Jewish Holocaust.
Five years ago, on the 85th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide, I was invited as education minister to the Armenian
church in the Old City of Jerusalem. This is what I said at the
time:
"I am here, with you, as a human being, as a Jew, as an
Israeli, and as the minister of education in Israel. For many years, too
many, you were alone on this, your memorial day. I am aware of the special
significance of my presence here. Today, for the first time, you are less
alone."
I recalled the Jewish American ambassador to Turkey at the
time of the slaughter, Henry Morgenthau, who called the massacre of the
Armenians "the greatest crime of modern history." That good man had no
idea what would yet happen in the 20th century - who could have
anticipated the Jewish Holocaust? And I recalled Franz Werfel's "The 40
Days of Musa Dagh," which came out in Germany in the spring of 1933 and
shocked millions of people and eventually, me, too, as a
youth.
Summing up, I said, "We Jews, the main victims of murderous
hatred, must be doubly sensitive and identify with other victims. Those
who stand aside, turn away, cast a blind eye, make their calculations of
gains and losses, and are silent, always help the murderers and never
those who are being murdered. In our new history curriculum I want to see
a central chapter on genocide, and within it, an open reference to the
Armenian genocide. That is our duty to you and to ourselves."
The
Armenian community in Israel and the world took note of that statement
with satisfaction. Turkey complained vociferously, demanding an
explanation from the Israeli government. And "my government," of all
governments, first stammered and then denied responsibility, and explained
that I spoke for myself. And not a remnant survives in the new curriculum
of the Livnat era.
Now it can be said. They were right. All the
stammerers and deniers. I really did not consult with anyone else and did
not ask for permission. What must be asked when the answer is known in
advance, and it is based on the wrong assumption that there is a
contradiction between a moral position and a political one? Just how
beastly must we be as humans, or as Haaretz wrote then in its editorial,
"The teaching of genocides must be at the top of the priorities of the
values of the Jewish people, the victim of the Holocaust, and no diplomacy
of interests can be allowed to stand in that way"?
The Israeli
Foreign Ministry, and not only it, is always afraid of its own shadow and
thus it casts a dark shadow over us all as accomplices to the "silence of
the world." The Dalai Lama, leader of the exiled Tibetans, has visited
here twice, and twice I was warned by "officials" not to meet with him. It
would mean a crisis in relations with China, the exact same thing they say
about Turkey. I rebuffed those warnings in both cases. I have always
believed that moral policies pay off in the long run, while rotten
policies end up losing.
And all this I will repeat in the capital
of Armenia, only in my name, of course.