Armenian activists deserve respect for preserving the memory of horrors suffered by their ancestors. But there is respectable, if not unanimous, historical literature concluding there was no genocide. I saw evidence in Van, Turkey, of massacres of Muslims by Russian soldiers collaborating with Armenian insurgents.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman fired his Boston director for saying it was genocide. When Boston ADL leaders rebelled, Foxman panicked and - without research - reversed decades of ADL policy by saying it was “tantamount to genocide.” Foxman’s explanation that he was preserving “Jewish unity” is maladroit because he acted against interests of Israel and Turkish Jews. Jak Kamhi, leader of Turkish Jews (whom Foxman did not consult despite promising for years to protect them), wrote, “ADL has put at risk our community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the U.S.”
Foxman did say the ADL would oppose the genocide resolution in Congress. But his volte-face strengthened its proponents; if there was genocide, why not proclaim it? The ADL failed to comprehend three key factors: 1. Turks view the campaign as branding them a nation of criminals. It is as if a parliament condemned Israel as genocidal because of Deir Yassin. Turkey’s government, pressured by nationalists, could not fail to act against U.S. strategic interests (e.g., supply of troops in Iraq) if the resolution passed. 2. ADL’s abrupt reversal precipitated accusations that Jews were conspiring to defame Turkey. Of course, anti-Semitism is to be condemned (Turkey’s government should have done more), but Foxman clumsily gave ammunition to those inclined to blame Jews. 3. Armenian activists, who seek to shatter U.S.-Turkish ties, cannot be placated. The ADL remains under fierce attack from Armenians for opposing the resolution.
He concludes:
A genocide resolution in a prior Congress was halted by a phone call from Shimon Peres to President Clinton. This time, the resolution was shelved when congressmen belatedly realized it portended disaster for the United States. The ADL’s actions diminished the importance of the Jewish community as allies of Turkey.
The reason for all the above is simple: the Armenian lobby - that’s not all Armenians who are members of the Diaspora, only the ones who dedicate their lives to have different governments recognize what happened as a ‘genocide’ - doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about US interests, it doesn’t care about Jewish interests. It also doesn’t care very much about historical truth (he’s right to point out that many true historians say that although what happened was terrible, it wasn’t genocide).
No, many members of the Armenian lobby care about this (land).
O, and this of course (money).
Make no mistake about it: quite some Armenians want revenge. They want to break up Turkey / claim Turkish lands and / or receive money.
It’s wise to keep this in mind.
What’s more: perhaps it’s time for Muslim survivors to demand the same things from Armenia. The French, Americans, Ottomans and British all reported that Armenians took possession of Turkish properties whenever they could. Yes, by force. What’s more; they killed many thousands of innocent Muslim Turks.
I’d say, return the favor.
Of course, the best way to deal with this problem is by people of both sides recognizing that they did terrible things* and, wait for it, moving on.
I realize that we have quite some open-minded, less aggressive Armenian-American readers. I think that honesty requires them to look at the demands - whether they repeat those demands publicly or only in private - and to acknowledge that for quite some of their more aggressive brethren, it’s not as much about ‘ethics’ or ‘right and wrong’ but about more, material things, shall we say?
*It’s interesting to see that Turks don’t deny that many Armenians were killed, they only object to the genocide label and point out that Armenians killed many Muslim Turks, but that no one is talking about them.
And they’re right.
November 18, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën
24 Responses to “Quite Right”
on November 19, 2007 at 4:07 am
1 P. Connolly
It is unfortunate, in my view, that there is a breach in the Jewish community because of a few hate-filled Agitators among the Armenian Community who call their opponents “deniers” while they themselves deny the atrocities perpetrated on so many Moslem Turks at the hands of Armenians. One of them said recently at a SF Chronicle Forum: “who’s to say a few poor moslems died?”. This typifies the attitude of so many of them with regard to the Moslem deaths at the hands of Armenians. The Jews need to wake up and take a closer second look at these people who pretend to be their friends and collaborators before it’s too late. A Moslem Life is a Human Life. All Jews should think twice before advocating a label that disregards the value of a Moslem Turkish Life.
on November 19, 2007 at 8:16 am
2 Thank You
Edited by MvdG of course.
on November 19, 2007 at 4:03 pm
3 John
The ADL would not have been in this mess… Edited by MvdG: Had it stayed truly neutral on the issue, no one would have even noticed.
on November 19, 2007 at 4:06 pm
4 Michael van der Galiën
They’re right to help Turkey John. Armenian militias weren’t exactly Jews’ best friends, now were they? They also realize that Turkey is most likely right and that the Armenian lobby has an ulterior motive: money and lands.
They can’t beat Turkey by using force, so they’re trying to bring her down by diplomacy.
on November 19, 2007 at 6:27 pm
5 Paul
“Armenian militias weren’t exactly Jews’ best friends, now were they?”
Blah blah blah you’ve descended into hearsay making assertions not based on any sort of certified truth. Armenian militias also hated the Incas, aboriginies, Maori, Lesothans, and Greenlandic peoples and destroyed their villages whenever possible too, right? Therefore the Incan lobby is rightfully firmly against them. I mean come on, this is just bizarre.
You continue to say “this was a terrible mutual tragedy and I feel bad for all involved”, and yet you then continuously unilaterally condemn these Armenian militias. I am aware there were some Jews in eastern Anatolia (it has been claimed Bob Dylan is descended from them- thus an occassionally made claim that Dylan is of Turkish descent), but I have never seen or heard any sort of figures- either on how many actually lived there or how many were allegedly killed, and by whom. The notion that they were singled out for extermination by Armenian militias (thus implying that no misfortune that might have befallen them was at all related to the Russians, the actual invading force) is clearly aimed at making Armenians look like Jew-killers and that somehow their cause was directly related to killing Jews. 1915 then gets brought full circle from being a question of the Ottoman government ordering genocide or not to Armenians being Nazis.
You remind me of Norman Stone. While you both claim to be even-minded on these issues, you go around making unsupported statements which seem to only serve making Armenians look bad. Stone recently claimed that Yerevan hosts branch offices of the PKK and that they freely operate amongst the citizenry. He does not need to cite a single source, the mere mentioning of that complete fabrication is enough for most of his supporters vis-a-vis opinion of Armenia to believe it. Meanwhile Michael you seemed to have suddenly gotten on a “Armenians killed Jews” kick in the middle of last week and now spare no expense to bring it up wherever you can.
Being fair does not mean never criticizing Armenians- that’s clearly far from the case. But claiming you are even-handed and commemorate the deaths on both sides equally- except that you will go on and on about all these alleged victims of Armenians and their treachury and yet not a word about those that killed the Armenians is indicative of not following your own words. A true person whose interests were memorializing all the dead would actually look into these claims of Jews killed by Armenians (never heard a word of it from ANYONE- not Turks, not Jews, not Armenians, etc.- at anytime prior to the ADL controversy) and not just parrotting them unquestioningly. Propaganda is a two-way street, and for all your crusading against Armenian propaganda you consistently accept it from the other side unquestioningly.
Using preconceived notions (all Armenians who questioned the authority of the sultan and/or repressive pasha triumverate were evil terrorists) to justify anything and everything you want to believe (Armenians genocided 100,000 Laplanders in 1915!) is NOT satisfactory in the realm of history and research.
on November 19, 2007 at 7:01 pm
6 P. Connolly
No one is “unilatterally condemmning” Armenian Militias. What’s happening here is that the lies of the Armenian Lobby are being exposed. Exactly how many of those US Congressmen voting for HR106 do you suppose were aware of all these Atrocities committed on MOSLEM TURKISH CIVILIANS at the time they registered their support for the “genocide” label ? And exactly how many of the Jews in Boston, who are now caught in the middle of an unnecessary breach with people who used to be their friends, do you suppose are aware of it? Are you willing to go and tell them ? Why not - you told them about the atrocities committed on Armenians ?
The arguments of the Armenian side are full of deceitful lies and they need to be exposed for what they are !
on November 19, 2007 at 7:52 pm
7 John
Anyone wanting to learn more on the plight of Turkish Jews in this whole affair should read Mouradian’s latest post on Jewcy. It’s an eye-opening article.
on November 19, 2007 at 8:07 pm
8 Paul
OK Connelly, so you perceive that the world is being tricked by the Armenians. Maybe that’s the case, it’s not for me to pass judgement here. If the Turkish side and their non-Turkish associates can make an accurate case (sorry but, for example, Halacioglu’s work is full of holes and distortions, it is nowhere near a definitive verdict on the times) for the number Armenians killed and what happened, then so be it. That said, this is no reason to stand for the piling-on I notice here of attributing anything and everything bad, historical or fantastical, to the exclusive work of Armenian revolutionaries. Just because you want to expose what you perceive as Armenian lies does NOT mean you therefore compromise your own creditibility by accepting anything you hear at all that portrays Armenians in a bad light, the clearest example of this being taking hearsay which has only surfaced this year about an alleged Armenian genocide of Jews in 1915 NOT supported by any sort of historical work published EVER, and pointing it out again and again and using it to reinforce your own views.
Michael and others here essentially have a double standard in that when a Turkish person is alleged to have killed an Armenian, a copy of the death certificate in triplicate, the bullet that killed them, and a diagram of the incident are required to certify this was not an Armenian exaggeration (this is intentional hyperbole being used here, you understand the point), while in the case of allegations of Armenians killing a completely unspecified number of Jews all that is required is that allegation. There has not been a single study published about these allegations, and even if one was the mere fact that a historian puts forth the notion it happened is far from actual validation of this occurance. However Michael trips over himself over the past week (since he first heard about it) about this massacre of Jews because it furthers and serves his beliefs that it be true whether there is a shred of evidence it is or not.
Am I, or am I not, being unresonable with this position? I think taking a step back with a more impartial view of this debate will clearly show that pointing this out is both true and reasonable. Michael if you truly want to serve and memorialize both sides and do this event historical justice, you will apply the SAME standards to both sides. Trying to combat perceived Armenian exaggerations with more exaggerations will in no way accomplish anything but just muddying the faces of both sides even more, so I’d ask that you stop throwing out wild speculation as fact.
on November 19, 2007 at 10:00 pm
9 P. Connolly
I see two posts by Paul totaling some 70 lines and I don’t see a single mention of the many deaths of MOSLEM TURKISH CIVILIANS. Am I missing something? This is the problem as I mentioned in my post #1 above - lots of talk about this issue but somehow those Moslem Turkish Deaths just don’t seem to count. The charge of “genocide” is being directed against the Turkish Government and against the Turkish People so it is relevant to focus on these atrocities committed by Armenians against MOSLEM TURKISH CIVILIANS and the fact that the Armenian side deceitfully omits mention of them.
on November 19, 2007 at 10:19 pm
10 Emek Demir
I am Turkish and from the northeastern part of Turkey. My grand-grand father took part in the events of 1915. And I remember him regretting heavily of the events.
But was it a genocide? To be honest, we learn nothing at Turkish schools, one has to do his own research. But if you do your research, than it is straightforward - yes it was a terrible event. Yes - there were ultra nationalist elements within the collapsing Ottoman government who were ruthless and would like to see a genocide happen. Yes -the deaths are not proportional - for every Turkish civilian died 5 to 10 armenian civilians died (depends on who you are believing). But what happened ultimately is hardly a genocide.
There are publicly available sources - I will not repeat them, but one thing that is often left out is Hemsin people.
They are Armenians who are converted and they refuse to call themselves Armenian. But their language is Armenian, they can speak with Armenians from Armenia without any problems. And their numbers are on the order of hundreds of thousands.
Hemsins are important for two things. They confirm what my grandparents told - many Armenians were spared either by local Turks or the Ottoman government. And they also greatly reduce the Armenian figures who simply counts all Armenians living in the region and assumed all of them were killed. A lot of them simply fled, some others - they just stopped calling themselves Armenians.
They were spared - yes they were forcibly converted, suppressed and to an extent assimilated - but still they were spared. If what my grandparents said is true a lot of them were hidden by the Turks themselves - my grand - grand father hid a family himself and then went ahead and joined the Turkish forces who took part in the massacre. My father later found one member of the family in France. They invited him to the dinner, opened up a bottle of wine and cried and laughed remembering those days.
Does it sound strange? Does it sound crazy? It was. But the times were crazy. During russian invasions, my grandparents lived in the forest for three years, afraid of the Armenian troops spearheading Russian army. Many civilian Turks were killed during that period. When the power situation changed Turks wanted revenge from those who supported russian invasion. And what followed was a mess, a shameful mess.
Many Armenians feel a lot more at home in Istanbul than in Yerevan. And it is no surprise : we shared the same land, same culture, same food, same fate for centuries. And we definitely need to sort out these old feuds. But no one will make Turks accept to wear the genocide t-shirt. It simply is an unacceptable lie - propagated by Armenian diaspora to hold their diaspora together. They are an organization who derive power from hatred.
Armenia could have enjoyed trade and support of Turkey. They could be the second Georgia. We could start sharing the culture and food again. Current situation hurts Armenia as well as Turkey - but looks like the diaspora cares a lot more about hatred that they care for their homeland.
on November 19, 2007 at 10:55 pm
11 Paul
Thanks for the pretty nice post Emek. It’s very true, many Turks helped and hid Armenians and Armenians do want to recognize that. I know one Armenian lady who was compiling stories throughout the diaspora of Turks who hid Armenians. There are numerous stories of orphaned Armenians being adopted by Turkish families where they lived, some temporarily until they could escape and some permanently.
The Hemsins are a very interesting story- but it’s not accurate that they are a byproduct of 1915. It is very true that some of them may be- there are MANY people living as Turks throughout Anatolia who either are Armenian and hide it or don’t even know since we are a few generations removed. Armenians who visit that area have come across quite a few, who will sometimes drop them little hints indiscernable to others that they are Armenian or after suspecting the foreigners are Armenian will take them aside and talk about it. There are others who just refuse to admit it- I know a Turk who is interested in Armenian things and wanted to talk to his neighbor who he knew was Armenian but the neighbor refused to admit it to him. He also knows a few Armenians who have adopted the beliefs of ultranationalist Turks to cover the fact they are not genetically so. By as I was saying, with the Hemshin the separation factor actually goes back many centuries during the time of the Turkish tribes entering the area when an Armenian prince converted his people to Islam. Thus a large deal of them have Islamic roots separated from Armenian mainstream long before 1915, but there is no doubt that the ranks of Islamic/secret Armenians were swelled by 1915.
P. Connolly, it looks like you have chosen to ignore my comments because of some obsession with Turkish civilians having been killed in 1915. I have said that it’s true and will say it again. What is not true, for example, is Halacioglu’s extreme exaggerations, but it’s clear that some were killed. I am not sure about the exact number and frankly no one is as there has not been a real impartial study on this subject. I am not afraid to admit it and would appreciate it that you refer to my REAL point (that the fact some Armenian revolutions killed Turks has given free reign for people here to claim they did absolutely anything to any number of people) now, instead of hiding behind your cry of “ARMENIANS KILLED TURKS”.
Yes, we know, but if you want a real discussion now say something of substance instead of sloganeering.
on November 19, 2007 at 11:00 pm
12 Michael van der Galiën
Some?
Some?
Paul. Seriously. Some?
Not ’some’: many. And not just after the deportations, but well before it already.
And they weren’t fighting for their freedom, they were fighting to take control of many of the lands Muslims lived on. They wanted to conquer it basically. Great-Armenia and all that.
And yes, I know that some members of the Armenian diaspora still hope to achieve that, which is why they want governments to ‘acknowledge’ that what happened was ‘genocide,’ and that’s also why they downplay the crimes committed by their ancestors.
Not all do that, but quite some do. The most vocal ones are the most guilty ones.
P.Connolly’s point clearly isn’t ’some Muslims died.’ It’s: Good Lord, Armenians killed many thousands of Muslim Turks before the deportations already!
Whether that’s convenient for the agenda of the leading figures in the Armenian diaspora or not, it’s true.
on November 19, 2007 at 11:16 pm
13 Paul
“P.Connolly’s point clearly isn’t ’some Muslims died.’ It’s: Good Lord, Armenians killed many thousands of Muslim Turks before the deportations already!”
Many thousand BEFORE? This is exactly what I’m talking about, where is your evidence for this. Maybe it’s true, but it seems like your reason for believing this is because it fits with your interpretation of the times, not because you have multiple examples of historical research to back it up.
Also, at least a hundred thousand Armenian civilians were killed by their government during 1894-6 alone. Portraying this whole complicated business as any Armenian who ever touched a gun as automatic terrorists when they had a history of being terrorized by their own government as well yet I don’t hear you say a bad thing about Abdul Hamid. The Dashnaks you hate meanwhile cooperated with the Young Turk government of 1908, making it clear they were not about all-terrorism-for-a-free-state all the time as you often like to spout. It was not until the moderate ruling heads of the YT regime were overthrown in 1913 by the ultranationalist faction that things made a quick downward spiral as Armenians no longer were seen as a necessary part of the Ottoman fabric.
And once again- my main point was regarding your constant talk of Armenian massacres of Jews and the complete lack of evidence that goes into your assertion. As I said, you take the fact that Armenians killed Turks as license to back up whatever claim you might come across whether it’s backed up by ANYTHING or not, because hey “Armenians were evil so they probably did whatever they were accused of, right?”
You’d never stand for that kind of reasoning when it comes to Turkish atrocities, so why is it so easy for you to act towards Armenians this way? Once again I reiterate that if you want to be impartial and respect all innocent victims you will make sure any claim you make is WELL SOURCED by evidence, not by your own clear pre-conceptions of each ethnicity.
on November 19, 2007 at 11:51 pm
14 Michael van der Galiën
Christ Paul, for the sake of argument I’ll assume you’re sadly and badly misinformed. I actually have given multiple sources in the past. My opinion is based on facts and on historical research. It’s the other sides that only appeals to people’s emotions.
Let me quote Binark:
“The first uprising took place at Erzurum on June 20, 1980. It was followed by the demonstration taking place at Kumkapi in the same year July 15, 1890 and the incidents of 1892-93 of Kayseri, Yozgat, Çorum and Merzifon; the first Sassoun uprising in August 1895, the Zeytun reellion from October 24, 1895 to January 28, 1896, the rebellion at Van on June 3, 1896; occupation of the Ottoman Bank on Augst 14, 1896; the second Sassoun uprising in 1903; the attempt to kill Sultan Abdulhamid at Yildiz on July 21, 1905; the incidents at Adana on April 14, 1909.
“It is well documented that all the risings were staged with the aim of forcing the Great Power to an armed intervention towards the Ottoman State.
“It is worth noting that the Armenian Patriarch told the British Ambassador Elliot on December 6, 1876 that
If it is required to start revolution or to rise up in order to secure the interventionof Europe in this matter or to draw its attention that can be done quite easily.”
“The British Ambassador Currie at Istanbul expressed the following view in his report he sent to the Foreign Office on March 28, 1894:
The Armenian revolutionaries stir up disorders with the aim of forcing the Ottomans to retaliate and thus pave the way for the intervention of foreign countries.
“The British Consul Grave at Erzurum in a message sent to the British Embassy at Istanbul on January 28, 1895, reports that:
The purpose of Armenian revolutionaries is to compel the Turkish government and Turkish nation to take action against themselves because of the general discontent they create themselves and so draw the attention of foreign powers to the imaginary sufferings of the Armenian people and convince them of the necessity to improve the situation.
“Upon the question of New York Herald correspondent Sydney Whitman as to whether such clashes would still have happened if Armenian revolutionaries had not come and had not instigated Armenians to rise up, the British Consul Graves replied ‘of course not, I do not think that a single Armenian would have been killed’.
“General Mayewski who served as Russia’s Consul General at Bitlis and at Van, reports as follows in a report of 1912:
Armenian revolutionaries created such a suspicion between Armenians and the local people in 1895 and 1896 that it became impossible to carry out any reforms in this area. Armenian clergymen were not busy with religious education at all. They endeavoured instead to disseminate nationalistic ideas. Such ideas were developed within the walls of the mysterious monasteries and enmity of Christians towards Muslims replaced religious duties. The reason of the rebellions taking place in many provinces of Anatolia in the years 1895 and 1896 was neither the poverty of Armenian villagers nor the supposed oppression on them. For these villagers were richer and more prosperous than their neighbours. Three causes may be mentioned for the Armenians uprisings:
1- their increasing consciousness in political matters; 2) the spreading of the ideas of nationalism, liberations and independence in the Armenian public opinion and 3) support provided by Western governments to such ideas and the effort of clergymen to disseminate them.
“The British Vice-consul at Van, Mr. Williams, points out in his report dated March 4, 1896 that:
Tashnaks and Hinchaks incited people in an excessive and wild manner and paralysed all the effort and activities undertaken to implement the reforms and that Armenian revolutionaries were responsible for whatever happened in Anatolia.
“The British Consul General at Adana, Mr. Doughty Wily, says in his report dated 1909 that:
Armenians have been striving to secure the intervention of foreign powers.
“General Mayewski states in another Report of his dated 1912 that:
The Tashnak militants have been trying to pave the way for Russian intervention by inciting troubles between Armenians and Muslims
“The Armenian historian Papazian wrote that:
The purpose of all the incidents and uprisings was to induce the European states to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Ottoman state.”
Or, if that’s not convincing enough how about the report submitted by the Austrian Consul to his government?
“The outcry and clamor of Armenians that Turks have been persecuting Armenians are nothing but lies. The Turkish government has done nothing evil to Armenians. Perhaps Armenians have planned a revolution taking advantage of the indifference of the government, have armed bands and sent them to mountains, as for the Turks, perhaps they have been trying only to pursue them and put down the risings.”
And on and on and and on it goes. Paul, I’m quite well informed about this matter. I’ve got translation of the Ottoman documents with regards to the Armenians. I’ve got quite some books and other works… In short, I know what I’m talking about.
Once again I reiterate that if you want to be impartial and respect all innocent victims you will make sure any claim you make is WELL SOURCED by evidence, not by your own clear pre-conceptions of each ethnicity.
If it was about ethnicity, I would support the Armenian claims. I’m Christian myself.
What’s more, I do believe that the deaths on both sides were horrible and tragic. The innocent deaths that is. I’ve said that on several occasions as well. There’s truly no Turk out there who says something else either. It are the Armenians who deny that they killed many Muslim Turks and that they actually staged an uprising. That they made things look worse than they were, because they wanted the great powers to intervene, etc.
The Armenian lobby is still busy doing so.
on November 20, 2007 at 12:06 am
15 P. Connolly
“Also, at least a hundred thousand Armenian civilians were killed by their government during 1894-6 alone.”
This is the whole problem. Because of the massacre the Armenian side wants to be able to say that the successive chain of events can be somehow morphed into a “genocide”, using Armenian Tunnel vision to ignore the reality that the Turks felt surrounded; circumstances were chaotic, there was a collapse of law and order in Eastern Anatolia and in a situation like this the Armenian militants can have a very detrimental and magnified effect . I have never used Halacioglu as an source direct or indirect. I don’t agree at all that people here are taking great liberties with numbers. It’s convenient to claim to be “not sure about the exact number and frankly no one is as there has not been a real impartial study on this subject”. I see a problem with the attitude in that statement and take exception to a charge of sloganeering on those grounds. It’s clear that the numbers are definitely big enough to disqualify a claim of “genocide”.
on November 20, 2007 at 12:11 am
16 Michael van der Galiën
P. Connolly: please pay attention to the sources cited above. These people, these Westerners, have something to say about that era as well.
What happened was terrible, but what happened was part of a civil war caused by Armenians.
That’s not an ‘opinion,’ it’s a fact.
on November 20, 2007 at 12:43 am
17 Paul
Michael, what’s funny is your quotes are only found on the internet as being taken directly from the site TallArmenianTale.com.
I am not saying everything on the site is automatically wrong, but to accept such quotes and information coming from a site which has clearly taken quite a stake in a certain position does once again throw your creditibility, or at least that of your sources, into question.
The Austrian consul’s alleged quote is cited thusly on the TAT page:
“Austrian Consul in a report submitted to his government, Nikerled Krayblis, Rusya’nin fiark Siyaseti ve Vilayet-i fiarkiyye Mes’elesi [Eastern Policy of Russia and the question of the Eastern Provinces], translated by Habil Adem, Istanbul, 1932, p. 178?
Who is this Austrian Consul? Was he the consul from Austria to the OE or the one from the Ottoman Empire to Austria? Why is he not even named? Meanwhile this translation was undertaken by a Turk, so it seems what is being here is not the original but the interpretation of a Turk- so basically a second party. Even presuming his translation is accurate, where is the original? Why are we getting the word of third parties (as you call them) via a first party directly involved? Would you accept the word of a unnamed mystery consul of which there is no information or primary source but just what an Armenian SAID he (or she, haha, we don’t even have a name!) said.
You also rely heavily on Mayewski quotes, but it bears pointing out that his work which TAT is getting this from was published by Turkey in 2001 with the stated goal of proving the genocide is a lie. A Turkish military major Mehmet Sadik first translated the work from Russian into Ottoman Turkish which was later retranslated into French for worldwide distribution many decades ago.
German professor martin Hartman:
http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Hartmann.htm compared the original Russian and the French via Ottoman work and found many omissions and discrepancies between the two- concluding that the work was worthless and appeared to insert a particular (Turkish-sympathetic) view into the mouth of a Russian. The mere fact it was translated numerous times before finally being reprinted in 2001 by Turkey with the stated goal of disproving the genocide and was taken from TallArmenianTale site should be enough to make us question the work, but Mr. Hartmann has also given some legitimate basis to such skepticism.
Also, since you are not getting these quotes on your own but from TAT (of which some have been proven to be outright forgeries, of which some even the webmaster eventually admitted through addendums have no source to back it up but was being included anyway on the off-chance they were true, of which some relies on the words of a non-historian who posted made up stuff under a psuedonymn on-line and yet is quoted like a real historian, and of some which replace the word Dashnak in the original source with the word Armenian- as if to make the quote about the behavior of all Armenians and not just a faction). Furthermore, besides the fact that we are only seeing these quotes on-line and not in their original form (if they so exist, which many don’t), we also are not permitted to see the context in which they were said- something I believe is vital to gain the full picture about what the author was talking about. Taking one or two sentences here and there and trying to piece together a comprehensive historical narrative out of it just doesn’t work.
I’m sorry but you’ll have to do better than that- relying on TAT for your quotes which you said you found though research is not playing fair.
on November 20, 2007 at 12:48 am
18 Michael van der Galiën
There we go again. Utterly amazing. Discredit what you think is the source. For your freaking information, I didn’t copy it from anywhere. Well, I copied it from the book which I am holding in my hands right now. In fact, I took 20 minutes or so to copy it, letter by letter, word by word so you could read it.
Now, please deal with the actual substance. Perhaps it’s time to admit that the Armenians actually staged rebellions way before 1915 in an attempt to get the European powers to intervene?
on November 20, 2007 at 12:53 am
19 Michael van der Galiën
If you want me to, I can even make a photo of me with the book. Would that finally inspire you to take the claims seriously, or do you continue to act as if the Armenians didn’t do anything truly wrong and will you continue to try to discredit what you think is the source?
What a despicable strategy. Ensures you don’t have to deal with the substance, doesn’t it? You just keep commenting, but whenever you are confronted with evidence that your side of the debate may not be all right, you simply ignore it.
You’re one of the most reasonable Armenian commenters I’ve come across, but if you continue down this path, I don’t see why I should take 20 minutes of my time to write stuff down for you time and again.
on November 20, 2007 at 2:01 am
20 Robert
In the initial article, there’s a link to Forbes.com, now since I am not a jurist, I hope someone here can enlight me…
My question is:
If the Armenians would be found “guilty” of instigating a civil war against the Empire, would they still be able to get compensation from the Insurance companies ???
on November 20, 2007 at 2:21 am
21 P. Connolly
Yes, clearly these are very sound sources quoted by Michael in his post #14 above. Arguing that there is insufficient context is nonsense. There are many more like this. The surrounding world circumstances of the time and the historical context concur completely with the actual state of affairs in Eastern Anatolia and show that it’s obviously the Armenian side that is engaged in revisionism and denial.
on November 20, 2007 at 2:33 am
22 P. Connolly
Yes, I certainly don’t have any problem with Armenians -or anyone else- getting paid on valid insurance claims. Their claim of having only the highest humanitarian motives doesn’t hold up to scrutiny due to the amount of lying involved and the land claims.
on November 20, 2007 at 9:41 am
23 Areen
Edit by MvdG: get out of here.
on November 20, 2007 at 5:04 pm
24 Westerners on the Armenian Strategy and Rebellion « The Van Der Galiën Gazette
[…] 20, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën An interesting debate ensued in the comments thread of my latest post on what some call the Armenian Genocide. One of the commenters (Paul), an Armenian-American, asked […]
Source: The Van Der Galiën Gazette
