Cyprus-Forum.com

[ARMENIAN CYPRIOT]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/ ... 6320120612

JERUSALEM | Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:09pm EDT
(Reuters) - An Israeli cabinet minister said on Tuesday that the Jewish state ought to change its policy and recognize the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as an act of genocide.

Gilad Erdan, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, answered a motion in parliament by opposition lawmakers marking the massacre's anniversary.

"I think it is definitely fitting that the Israeli government formally recognize the Holocaust perpetrated against the Armenian people," Erdan, Israel's environmental affairs minister said.

Israel has long avoided acknowledging the mass killings of Armenians as genocide, in deference to already strained ties with Turkey which rejects that view.

Relations with Turkey have been tense since the 2010 killings of nine Turkish activists in a commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship. Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel after that incident and suspended military cooperation.

Erdan said the Israeli government had not formally changed its policy on the Armenian's past tragedy, adding: "we should definitely support holding an open and in depth discussion that analyses the data and facts."

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.

Successive Turkish governments and most Turks feel the charge of genocide is an insult. Ankara argues that there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the area.

Israeli lawmakers voted that the issue would face further debate in the education committee. Any parliamentary decision on the issue would not be binding on the government.

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman at Israel's Foreign Ministry, said Israel's formal position on the Armenian tragedy remained that the issue "must be decided by historians and not be subject to political deliberation."

The Armenian issue has stirred emotions in Israel where many feel that the Jewish people who suffered six million dead in the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two have a moral obligation to identify more closely with the Armenians' ordeals.

"Those who demand recognition of the murder are not engaged in lobbying but are simply seeking historic justice," Israeli Parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin, a member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, said.

Nino Abesadze, a lawmaker with the centrist Kadima party, counseled against linking the issue to relations with Turkey.

"We must not link our sentiments about the Armenian tragedy to considerations about other dangers in the region. Events such as genocide are above politics," Abesadze said.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)

[kimon07]

Have they voted on it yesterday?

With eye on Turkey, Israel debates Armenia deaths
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/with-e ... sCatID=352

JERUSALEM - The Associated Press

The Israeli parliament has begun a debate over whether to recognize the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I as genocide.

Such a move would enrage Turkey and further strain the already tense ties between the two countries.

For years, Israel has refrained from commenting on the matter for fear of angering Turkey, which until recently was its closest ally in the Muslim world. But as ties have frayed under the Islamic-oriented rule of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israel appears to be changing course.

Parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin denied that Tuesday's debate was related to deteriorating ties with Turkey. In a radio interview, he said there is no intent to provoke, only to remember.

It was unclear if there would be a vote Tuesday.
June/12/2012

[kimon07]

'Recalling Armenian genocide not attack on Turks'
By GIL HOFFMAN, DANIEL CLINTON
06/12/2012 18:35

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPoliti ... ?id=273608
Rivlin says Knesset discussion of murder of more than a million Armenians nearly a hundred years ago not political.
Photo: Bogdan Cristel/Reuters
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Tuesday that Israel had an obligation to remember the murder of more than a million Armenians at the hands of the Turks nearly a hundred years ago, but warned that the issue should not be turned into an attack on the Turkish government of today.
Rivlin made the comments at a Knesset discussion on the Armenian genocide. Speaking a day before State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss was scheduled to release a report on Israel’s interception of Turkish ships bound for the Gaza Strip, Rivlin insisted that the discussion of the Armenian genocide was not politically motivated.
“Those who drafted the Final Solution for the Jews figured the world would be silent as they were when the Armenians were murdered,” Rivlin said.
“We cannot forgive nations who ignore our disaster and we cannot ignore the disasters of others,” Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On, who initiated the Knesset discussion, accused the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of using the Armenian tragedy to attack Turkey.
Gal-On said the government should “finally recognize” the episode as a genocide and restore relations with Turkey by agreeing to apologize for the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists at the hands of IDF commandos during the May 2010 raid of the Mavi Marmara vessel, which was part of a flotilla attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
“The Armenian genocide is not an opportunity for public diplomacy,” Gal-On told the Knesset plenum. “Israel is strong enough to apologize for the killing of Turkish citizens without it harming Israel’s honor or its security. We don’t need to choose between recognizing genocide and relations with Turkey. We can have both.”
“The Jewish people who have experienced the worst Holocaust have an obligation to show sensitivity to the disasters of others,” she added.
National Union MK Arieh Eldad called on Turkey to recognize its responsibility for its “historical crime,” which he said included children being “put into cellars and gassed.”
Eldad quoted Adolf Hitler as having said “Who remembers what happened to the Armenians,” when he was asked what the world would say about his Final Solution against the Jews.
Kadima MK Robert Tibayev was the only lawmaker to speak against Israel recognizing the Armenian genocide, saying the state should not interfere in the issue but let historians or an international body determine if there was a genocide.
Balad MK Said Nafa, a Christian, took the opportunity to accuse current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being hypocritical by complaining about the atrocities being committed by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his people while he himself has killed dozens of Kurds.