Tel-Chai Nation

From the Yeshiva World, we learn that four professors, 3 from Bar-Ilan U. and 1 from Georgetown U. have sent a letter to the prime minister's office asking them to do the right thing and recognize the Armenian Holocaust:

Signing the letter are Professors Yossi Katz, David Tzuriel, and Yaakov Katz, all from Bar Ilan and Dr. Ofir Yisraeli from Georgetown.

The academics feel that over the years, Israel has refrained from addressing the slaughter of Armenians during World War I and immediately thereafter, opting to place strategic ties with Turkey over doing the correct thing, but now, Israel can indeed adopt a morally commendable position towards compelling Turkey to accept responsibility for its actions.

I read in Yisrael HaYom's June 11, 2010 edition that for many years, the Israeli government actively sought to avoid "offending" Turkey, all for the sake of trade deals involving arms manufacturing and tourism. This includes not raising the subject as a school-based history lesson, and not only that, most bewildering enough, it seems that some even thought it would "belittle" the subject of the Jewish people's own tragedy during WW2! Excuse me? Where's the logic in that?

Discovering this, I can't even begin to describe how embarrassing and shameful this is. Even Shimon Peres was one of these politicians who circled around the issue. And I think it's time not only to change this, but also to apologize, for how previous governments dealt with the issue. By the logic they went by in past years, one could say that even the massacres and genocides of certain black peoples of Africa cannot be discussed out of fear of "offending" Islam in Sudan.

We must maintain the integrity of the historical record.

Labels: anti-semitism, Armenia, Israel, political corruption, racism, turkey