Jewish Chronicle
\nJuly 1 2010<\/p>\n
Israel’s protests — in the wake of the flotilla crisis — at Turkish
\nmisdeeds are cynical in the extreme<\/p>\n
By Keith Kahn-Harris, July 1, 2010<\/p>\n
In the wake of the flotilla crisis, Israel’s relations with Turkey
\nhave taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Once Israel’s closest ally
\nin the region, both countries fearing Islamism together with Iranian
\nand Arab expansionism, the alliance now hangs by a thread.<\/p>\n
As the geopolitical tectonic plates shift, so does the rhetoric of
\nIsrael’s defenders. Into the crosshairs of Hasbara-niks and pro-Israel
\ncampaigners comes the Turkish state. Turkey certainly has many
\ndeeply disturbing features that can and should be highlighted. To say
\nnothing of its recent Islamist turn, this is a country that continues
\nto oppress the Kurdish people and of course in 1917 carried out a
\ngenocide in its slaughter of over one million Armenians. Not only has
\nTurkey never apologised for the genocide, it has vigorously denied it,
\nprotesting against commemorations of the slaughter and persecuting
\nTurkish writers who have tried to come to terms with the past.<\/p>\n
In recent Israeli demonstrations against Turkey and in vigils outside
\nits embassy, placards have been prominently displayed reminding the
\nworld of the Armenian genocide. But until very recently not only were
\nTurkish human rights abuses – past and present – ignored by Israel
\nand its supporters, they were among the most active in perpetuating
\nthe denial of the Armenian genocide.<\/p>\n
In his book The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide,
\nYair Auron recounts the shameful history of Israel’s complicity
\nin Armenian genocide denial. Driven by short-term political
\nconsiderations, Israeli governments have resisted recognising the
\ngenocide and in 1982 tried to pressure Israeli scholars from taking
\npart in an international conference on the subject.<\/p>\n
In the diaspora, the record of most Jewish and pro-Israel organisations
\nhas been equally woeful. There was pressure on the Holocaust Memorial
\nMuseum in Washington DC not to mention the Armenian genocide. In
\n2007, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman was central to the
\nsuccessful suppression of a renewed attempt at commemoration.<\/p>\n
And now? With the war of words between Turkey and Israel growing
\never more virulent and with grassroots pro-Israel groups taking
\nevery opportunity to remind the world of Turkish atrocities, Jewish
\nand Israeli complicity in Armenian genocide denial looks likely to
\nend. As Morris Amitay, a former executive director of AIPAC has said:
\n“If someone asked me now if I would try to protect Turkey in Congress,
\nmy response would be, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.'”<\/p>\n
But if cynically denying genocide was bad then cynically affirming
\nit is almost as repellent. It undermines moral credibility and –
\nmost dangerously given the spread of Holocaust denial in the Muslim
\nworld – risks tarring Shoah commemoration with the same cynicism.<\/p>\n
It may be tempting to put consideration for Israel’s strategic
\ninterests above respect for history and human rights, but it should be
\nresisted. If Turkey is now too morally tainted to be worthy of having
\nIsrael as an ally, then it never was a worthy ally. When the next
\ndodgy alliance rears its head (China? Russia?) Israel and its friends
\nshould remember the Turkish example and put moral survival first.<\/p>\n
Keith Kahn-Harris is honorary research fellow at the Centre for
\nReligion and Society, Birkbeck College. His book (co-authored with
\nBen Gidley) ‘Turbulent Times; The British Jewish Community Today’
\nwill be published this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jewish Chronicle July 1 2010 Israel’s protests — in the wake of the flotilla crisis — at Turkish misdeeds are cynical in the extreme By Keith Kahn-Harris, July 1, 2010 In the wake of the flotilla crisis, Israel’s relations with Turkey have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Once Israel’s closest ally in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":34116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[3044],"class_list":["post-20372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-mavi-marmara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}