2495) Swedish Parliament: No Armenian Genocide by Michael van der Galien

In what can be called quite a serious blow to the goals of Armenian activists, Sweden’s Parliament has refused to call the events of 1915 ‘genocide.’ In the end, it was not even close. 245 PMs voted against the ‘genocide’ bill, only 37 voted for it. The reasoning of the Parliament: . . .

“no particular consideration regarding the Armenian situation has ever been in form of an UN Resolution, either in 1985 or any other occasion; the Committee understands that what engulfed the Armenians, Assyrian/Syrians and Chaldeans during the reign of the Ottoman Empire would, according to the 1948 Convention, probably be regarded as genocide, if it had been in power at the time; there is still a disagreement among the experts regarding the different course of events of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The same applies to the underlying causes and how the assaults shall be classified; [in regard to the development in Turkey] in the time being, it would be venturesome to disturb an initiate and delicate national process.”

If Armenians would, for a change, accept Turkey’s invitation to do historical research, a lot of questions may be answered. Strangely, however, they are not quite willing to let objective researchers research all archives. Hmm.

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Comments »
1
Lucrèce
June 13, 2008
This is a new defeat for Armenian claims, after the failures in Congress of America, in the Spanish, Israelian and Bulgarian parliaments.
Now it should go on the offensive, and seek the repeal of some resolutions, especially in France and in local US assembly.


2
Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
June 13, 2008
Lucrece: I agree with your ‘on the offense’ statement. The truth has to come out, but it will not come out if Turks are playing defense constantly.


3
Vahagn Avedian
June 13, 2008
I don’t know what exaclty does "objective researchers" mean, but if the following names are not objective, I don’t know who are.

itwasgenocide.armenica.org

The Armenian Genocide, which also engulfed the Assyrians, Pontic Greeks and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire, began more than nine decades ago in 1915, but this issue gains added urgency the longer that denial of the crime continues. The genocide, or “extermination” as it was labeled by the international media and diplomatic corps, was an established fact for the world community. During the brief postwar period following the defeat of Turkey in 1918 until the rise of the Turkish Nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal, the annihilation of the Armenians was discussed openly. Turkish court martial tribunals tried political and military leaders implicated in “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.” Several of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to death or given prison terms. Post-war Turkey passed through a phrase similar to that of Germany after World War II. During these proceedings, the truth about the persecution of the minorities in the Ottoman Empire was brought to light with horrifying details.The process did not last long, however. The rise of the Turkish Nationalist movement and rejection of the sultan’s government ultimately led to the disbanding of the tribunals and the release of most of the accused. Almost all of the remaining Christian population—Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek—was then cleansed from their homelands of several millennia. Much of the court data and protocols disappeared, and Turkey entered a period of trying to erase all traces of Armenian existence in Anatolia and the historic Armenian plateau to the east.Nine decades later, the once so-called “forgotten genocide” is no longer forgotten and warrants growing attention among academic and political circles. It is seen as a prototype of mass killing in the twentieth century and can be viewed as one of the most successful campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing in all history. The victimization of the Armenians extended to the Assyrian, Greek, Yezidi, and even Kurdish population, which was subjected to extensive “social engineering” through forced relocation and resettlement. As it happened the Turkish authorities became the beneficiaries of an “Armenia without Armenians” and, despite worldwide pledges and promises to punish the perpetrators, escaped any responsibility for the crime. Today, Turkey implements an active campaign of denial. Silence and passivity on the part of the world community, including Sweden, can only aid and abet this campaign. All the arguments relating to the need for further research or lack of consensus among scholars are spurious. The archives of every major country in Europe leave no doubt about the campaign of annihilation which occurred under the cover of a world conflict. The denialist arguments are all politically motivated and have nothing to do with the historical record. They are no more credible than those of Holocaust deniers such as Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Willis Carto, and Ernst Zündel.Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in the 1940s and was the principal author of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was deeply aware of the Armenian calamity and the failure of the international community to intercede or at least to punish the authors of the genocide. Recent research has demonstrated how deeply he was affected by the absence of effective international machinery to intervene at the time. He was also troubled by the persecution and massacres of the Assyrians in Iraq during the 1930s. What is more, newly conducted research at Uppsala University confirms that the Swedish Foreign Department and Government, through the reports of Ambassador Per Gustaf August Cosswa Anckarsvärd’s and Military Attaché Einar af Wirsén, were well aware of the annihilation that was occurring in the Ottoman Empire.Today, Sweden is internationally regarded as a champion of human rights. It is incumbent on the Swedish authorities to live up to this reputation and to reject any compromise with negationism and denial. The Swedish Government should attempt to assist Turkey to become a better democracy by facing its history and acknowledging the truth, not by continuing to stagger in the darkness of self-deception and pretense.Today, the data and information about the Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks are so extensive that no serious politician can honestly cite insufficient or inconclusive research as an excuse to avoid recognition. Refusal to recognize established fact based on qualitative and quantitative research may be regarded as being tantamount to denial. The researchers have done their job in establishing the reality of the Armenian Genocide. Now, the turn has come for the political leaders to fulfill their responsibility by recognizing this calamity for what it was.The signatories of this letter do not consider there is any doubt that the massacres of Christians and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire during the World War I constituted genocide. Even though research must and will continue, the existing information is compelling and must be acknowledged as such.

Adam Jones
Associate Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia Okanagan
Åke Daun
Professor Emeritus of Ethnology, particularly European, Stockholm University
Alex Grobman
President of the Institute for Contemporary Jewish Life and the Brenn Institute
Alexandre Kimenyi
Professor of Linguistics, Ethnic Studies and African Languages at California State University, Sacramento
Alexis Herr
Doctoral Student, Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University
Alfred Grosser
Professor Emeritus, the Paris Institute of Political Science, author of the preface to Vahakn Dadrian, Histoire du génocide arménien, Paris, 1996
Alfred de Zayas
Professor of international Law, Geneva School of Diplomacy
Retired Senior Lawyer with the United Nations
Former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee
Former Chief of the Petitions Division at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
President, P.E.N. International, Centre Suisse Romand
Anatoly M. Khazanov
Ernest Gellner Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Anders Hultgård
Professor Emeritus of Religious History, Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bruno Chaouat
Associate Professor of French, Center for Jewish Studies, University of Minnesota
Charles Eric Reeves
Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts
Christian P. Scherrer
Professor of Peace Studies, Hiroshima University and Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima, Japan
Claude Mutafian
Associate Professor of Mathematics and Senior Lecturer, the Paris 13 University in Villetaneuse
Ph.D. in History, Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University
David Gaunt
Professor of History, Södertörn University College, Sweden
Debórah Dwork
Rose Professor of Holocaust History
Director, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University
Dickran Kouymjian
Professor of History, Director of Armenian Studies Program, California State University, Fresno
Donald E. Miller
Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California
Douglas Greenberg
Professor of History
Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, Leavey Library, University of Southern California
Elizabeth R. Baer
Professor of English and Genocide Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota
Ellen J. Kennedy
Interim Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Coordinator, Genocide Intervention Network, Minnesota
Eric D. Weitz
Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Chair, History Department, University of Minnesota
Ervin Staub
Professor of Psychology and Founding Director of the Ph.D. Program in the Psychology of Peace and the Prevention of Violence, Emeritus, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Franklin Hugh Adler
G. Theodore Mitau Chair DeWitt Wallace Professor, Department of Political Science, Macalester College
George Andreopoulos
Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center for Human Rights at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York
Heidi Armbruster
Lecturer, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, UK
Helen Fein
Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide, Associate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Herb Hirsch
Professor of Political Science and co-editor, Genocide Studies and Prevention
L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
Irving Louis Horowitz
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science
James E. Young
Professor of English and Judaic Studies, University of Massachusetts
John K. Roth
Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Founding Director, The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College, California
Kirk C. Allison
Program Director, Program in Human Rights and Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota
Klas-Göran Karlsson
Professor of History, Lund University, Sweden
Kostas Fraggidis
Secretary, Evxinos Pontos Stockholm
Kristian Gerner
Professor of History, Lund University, Sweden
Lars M. Andersson
Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Linda M. Woolf
Professor of Psychology, Webster University, Missouri
Manus I. Midlarsky
Moses and Annuta Back Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Martha Minow
Member of the Faculty of Education
Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor, Harvard Law School
Michael Dobkowski
Professor of Religious Studies, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Michael Mann
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
Norman Naimark
Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies, Stanford University
Omer Bartov
John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Department of History, Brown University
Ove Bring
Professor of International Law, Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, Sweden
Paul A. Levine
Senior Lecturer in Holocaust History
Education Director, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden
Rachel Hadodo
Chairwoman of the Board, Union of Assyrian Associations in Sweden
Raffi Momjian
Chairman and Executive Director, The Genocide Education Project, San Francisco
Raymond Kévorkian
Professor, Institut Français de Géopolitique, Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis
Richard G. Hovannisian
Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Melson
Cohen-Lasry Distinguished Professor, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University
Roger W. Smith
Professor Emeritus, Department of Government, College of William and Mary, Virginia
Past President, International Association of Genocide Scholars
Ronald Grigor Suny
Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History, The University of Michigan
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and History, The University of Chicago
Rudolph Joseph Rummel
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, the University of Hawaii
Sandra Tatz
Director of the Australian Association of Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Saul P. Friedlander
Professor, Department of History, UCLA
Shelly Tenenbaum
Professor of Sociology, Undergraduate Activities Coordinator, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University
Stanley Payne
Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Wisconsin
Steven Leonard Jacobs
Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair of Judaic Studies
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, The University of Alabama
Editor, the Papers of Raphael Lemkin
1st Vice-President, International Association of Genocide Scholars
Susan Ashbrook Harvey
Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University
Tessa Hofmann
Ph.D. in Sociology, Department of Sociology, Institute for East European Studies, Free University Berlin
Tigran Sarukhanyan
Member of International Association of Genocide Scholars
Visiting Research Fellow (PRO), Official Archives of Great Britain
Humboldrt Fellow, University of Goettingen, Germany
Tuomas Martikainen
Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Academy of Finland, Åbo Akademi University, Deptartment of Comparative Religion
Vahagn Avedian
Chairman of the Board, Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden
Chief Editor, Armenica.org
William Hewitt
Professor, Holocaust Genocide Program, West Chest University of Pennsylvania
Winton Higgins
Director of the Australian Association of Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute for International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney
Wolfgang Gust
Editor of the Official Documents of the German Foreign Office on the Armenian Genocide
Yair Auron
Professor in Sociology, Head of the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel, Jerusalem
Yehuda Bauer
Professor Emeritus, Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Faculty of Humanities, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem
Yves Ternon
Ph.D. in History, Paris 4-Sorbonne University. HDR, Universit Paul Valéry-Montpellier 3

4
A. A. B.
June 13, 2008
One thing does bother me: There’s always talk of the Armenian victims, whether their death was genocide etc.

What baout the Turkish/Muslim victims? Hundreds of thousands of civilians died as well, in the same time and area. Why does no one care about them? A life is a life.

5
Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
June 13, 2008
Comment number three: should i give you a list of people who disagree? OK.

1. William Batkay
2. Roderic Davidson
3. Edward J. Erickson
4. David Fromkin
5. Edwin A. Grosvenor
6. Michael Gunter
7. J.C. Hurwitz
8. Eberhard Jäckel
9. Steven Katz
10. Avigdor Levy
11. Bernard Lewis
12. Guenther Lewy
13. Heath Lowry
14. Andrew Mango
15. Justin McCarthy
16. Pierre Oberling
17. Dankwart Rostow
18. Stanford Shaw
19. Norman Stone
20. Gilles Veinstein

And perhaps I should include this article from The New York Times on May 19, 1985:

‘The undersigned American academicians who specialize in Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies are concerned that the current language embodied in House Joint Resolution 192 is misleading and/or inaccurate in several respects………….we respectfully take exception to that portion of the text which singles out for special recognition: ‘……the one and one half million people of Armenian ancestry who were victims of genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923….’

‘…….No signatory of this statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in the direction of serious inter-communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces), complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres in Anatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War. Indeed, throughout the years in question, the region was the scene of more or less continuous warfare, not unlike the tragedy which has gone on in Lebenon for the past decade. The resulting death toll among both Muslim and Christian communities of the region was immense. But much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population, Christian and Muslim alike…………
‘the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is much debated among scholars, many of whom do not agree with the historical assumptions embodied in the wording of H.J.Res.192. ….Such a resolution, based on historically questionable assumptions, can only damage the cause of honest historical enquiry, and damage the credibility of the American legislative process.’

Signatories:
Rifaat Abou-EJ-Haj, Professor of History, California State University at Long Beach
Sarah Moment Atis, Associate Professor of Turkish Language and Literature, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Karl Barbir, Associate Professor of History, Siena College New York
Ilhan Basgoz, Director of Turkish Studies Program at the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, Indiana University
Daniel G.Bates, Professor of Abtropology, Hunter College, City University of New York
Ulku Bates, Professor of Art History, Hunter College, City College of New York
Gustav Bayerie, Professor of Uralic and Altaic Studies, Indiana University
Andras G.E. Bodrogligetti, Professor of Turkic and Iranian Languages, University of California at Los Angeles
Kathleen Burrill, Associate Professor of Turkish Studies, Columbia University
Timothy Childs, Professorial Lecturer SAIS, Johns Hopkins Universtiy
Shafiga Daulet, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut
Roderic Davison, Professor of History, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Walter Denny, Professor of Art History and Near Eastern Studies..University of Massachusetts
Dr Alan Duben, Antropologist, Researcher, New York City
Ellen Ervin, Research Assistant Professor of Turkish, New York University
Caesar Farah, Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern History, University of Minnesota
Carter Findley, Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University
Michael Finefrock, Professor of History, College of Charleston
Alan Fisher, Professor of History, Michigan State University
Cornell Fleischer, Assistant Professor of History, Washington University (Missouri)
Peter Golden, Professor of History, Rutgers University, Newark
Tom Goodrich, Professor of History, Indiana University of Pennyslyvania,
Andrew Gould, PhD. İn Otoman History, Flagstaff, Arizona
William Griswold, Professor of History, Colorado State University,
Tibor Halasi-Kun, Professor Emeritus of Turkish Studies, Columbia University
William Hickman, Associate Professor of Turkish, University of California, Berkeley
J.C.Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus Former Director of the Middle East Institute (1971-1984), Columbia University
John Hymes, Professor of History, Glenville State College, West Virginia
Halil İnalcik, University Professor of Otoman History and Member of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, University of Chicago
Ralph Jaeckel, Visiting Assistant Professor of Turkish, University of California at Los Angeles
Ronald Jennings, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Illinois
James Kelly, Associate Professor of Turkish, University of Utah
Kerim Key, Adjunct Professor, Southeastern University, Washington,D.C.
Metin Kunt, Professor of Otoman History, New York City
Frederick Latimer, associate Professor of History, Retired, University of Utah
Avigdor Lewy, Professor of History, Brandeis University
Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern History, Princeton University
Dr Heath W.Lowry, Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc. Washington, D.C.
Justin McCarthy, Associate Professor of History, University of Louisville
Joc Mandaville, Professor of the History of the Middle East, Portland State University (Oregon)
Michael Mecker, Professor of Anthropology, University of California at San Diego
Rhoads Murphey, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and History, Columbia University
Thomas Naff, Professor of History and Director, Middle East Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania
Pierre Oberling, Professor of History, Hunter College of the City University of New York
William Ochsenwald, Associate Professor of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Robert Olson, Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky
William Peachy, Assistant Professor of the Judaic and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University
Donald Quataert, Associate Professor of History, University of Houston
Howard Reed, Professor of History, University of Connecticut
Dankwart Rustow, Distinguished University Professor of Political Science, City University Graduate School, New York
Ezel Kural Shaw, Associate Professor of History, California State University, Northridge
Stanford Shaw, Professor of History, University of California at Los Angeles
Elaine Smith, Ph.D. in Turkish History. Retired Foreign Service Officer, Washington, D.C.
Grace M. Smith, Visiting Lecturer in Turkish University of California at Berkeley
John Mason Smith, Jr. Professor of History, University of California at Berkeley
Dr. Svat Soucek, Turcologist, New York City
Robert Staab, Assistant Director of the Middle East Center, University of Utah
June Starr, Associate Professor of Anthropology SUNY Stoneybrook
James Stewart-Robinson, Professor of Turkish Studies, University of Michigan
Dr. Philip Steddard, Executive Director, Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C.
Frank Tachau, Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Metin Tamkoc, Professor of International Law and Relations, Texas Tech University
David Thomas, Associate Professor of History, Rhode Island College
Margaret L. Venzke, Assistant Professor of History, Dickinson College (Pennsylvania)
Warren S. Walker, Horn Professor of English and Director of the Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, Texas Tech University
Donald Webster, Professor of Turkish History, Retired
Walter Welker, Professor of Political Science, Rytgers University
John Woods, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History, University of Chicago
Madeline Zilfi, Associate Professor of History, University of Maryland

Note that they were from 44 different American universities and colleges, 38 of them were experts of history, and only 7 out of 69 were Turkish origined.

6
Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
June 13, 2008
A.A.B.: yes, and that’s something I’m trying to point out time and again. So many Turkish Muslims died, yet we never hear governments speak about the Turkish Muslims who were slaughtered by Armenians and allies.

7
Mustafa Ka
June 13, 2008
I think, only the following examples are enough to display the scientific and ethical reliability of the ‘independent’ scholars who support the Armenians in their various thesis: The cover photograph of the book of Tessa Hoffmann: German scholar Tessa Hoffmann printed the painting of Russian artist Vasili Vereshchagin entitled ‘The Apotheosis of the Franco-Prussia War of 1871, depicting a mass of skulls which is displayed in Russian Painting Gallery, as if it were the photograph of 1915 Armenian genocide, in the cover of a pamphlet used to introduce a conference entitled ‘Der Volkermord and den Armenien vor Gericht (The Armenian Genocide on Trial). Tessa Hoffman had to admit his forgery during the trial of Doğu Perinçek held in Switzerland in March 2007, in which he was listened as a wittness. Atatürk’s photograph: The large poster with ‘FACE OF DENIAL-DOES NOT LIE’ related to a conference given by Dr Vahram Shemmasian, Ardashes Kassakhian and Dr Levon Marashlian, at UCLA on April 14, 2005, organized by Armenian Genocide Commemoration Committee of Alpha Epsilon Omega, (www.genocideevents.com/cities/losangeles.html) was just a scandal: The photo depicted the founder of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk, sitting on a chair outside a house with the corpse of a young girl with her innards exposed to the elements. Soon, the original of this photo was found by the Turks: It was a photograph of Ataturk for his wife Latife Hanım as a souvenir, posing with some ‘cute dog puppies’ at his feet. Two photos were printed in the July 1, 2005 issue of Hurriyet (webarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/2005/07/01/665930.asp), as ‘a forgery scandal’. It is another outstanding point that no dissenting comment was ever heard. What UCLA’s ethical committee did was to erase the handwritten note and doctor a photo of Armin Wengler in place of the puppies. This degree of base falsification and slandering must have suited the present status of UCLA, an institution of higher learning dominated by Armenophile scholars, and where Prof Stanford Shaw’s home was bombed in 1977, just because he did not support the Armenian thesis. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/16/armenian-crime-amnesia/

8
Lucrèce
June 13, 2008
They are no more credible than those of Holocaust deniers such as Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Willis Carto, and Ernst Zündel.
Wow! It’s remain me to this dialog of a famous French film:

— Pensez-vous qu’ils oseraient venir ici ? (Do you think they would dare come here?)
— Les cons, ça ose tout, c’est même à ça qu’on les reconnaît. (The damn fools dare all, it is even being recognized.)

Indeed, among the signatories, there is Prof. Saul Friedländer. How he could sign this ridiculous petition? Among the respectable scholars defamed by this text, there is Prof. Guenter Lewy, a survivor of the Shoah, an author than Mr. Friedländer believe very much.

www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/European/Germany/?view=usa&ci=9780195142402

"Guenter Lewy’s The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies is an outstanding achievement. It will become the standard work on the subject. It documents and analyses an aspect of Nazi criminality that hasn’t received sufficient attention and corrects some unfounded statements. It is a work of great compassion and exemplary scholarship."–Saul Friedlander, Department of History, Tel Aviv University and University of California, Los Angeles

Mr. Friedländer really believes that Mr. Lewy is no more credible that Mr. Faurison? Has Prof. Friedländer only read The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, Prof. Lewy’s book about the Armenian affair? Or the books and the articles of Mrs. McCarthy, Shaw, Lewis, Lowry, Stone, Salt, Erickson, Veinstein, Sonyel, Sarinay, etc.?

9
lazlee
June 13, 2008
VA-

Pray tell, how many of those you list are expert Ottoman historians? Not a one.
Also, the so-called International Association of Genocide Scholars are just another group funded by the Armenian genocide proponents’ Zoryan Institute.
Contrast that with the list Michael sets forth which is comprised of third party historians who are acknowledged as the preeminent experts in Ottoman history.

Hey Mustafa Ka- give us a break! as in frequent paragraph breaks so that it is easy to read what you write. What you’ve posted is lost in one big mass of words, which is a shame…

10
Richard
June 13, 2008
Interesting that you list the signitories (sic) from the paid announcement (which you call an ‘article’) published in the New York Times on May 19, 1985. On that list is Professor Donald Quataert, then at the University of Houston, now at SUNY Binghampton. Professor Quataert was recently forced out of his position as the Chairman of the Institute of Turkish Studies for using the term ‘genocide’ in relation to the Ottoman extermination of its Armenian population and for criticizing the level of scholarship of many Turkish-financed academics.

11
Lucrèce
June 13, 2008
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/genocide–11140?page=2

I am less than impressed by the unanimous vote of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Armenian case “was one of the major genocides of the modern era.” The great majority of these self-proclaimed experts on Ottoman history have never set foot in an archive or done any other original research on the subject in question.

12
Mustafa Ka
June 13, 2008
I think, only the following examples are enough to display the scientific and ethical reliability of the ‘independent’ scholars who support the Armenians in their various thesis: The cover photograph of the book of Tessa Hoffmann: German Greek scholar Tessa Hoffmann printed the painting of Russian artist Vasili Vereshchagin entitled ‘The Apotheosis of the Franco-Prussia War of 1871, depicting a mass of skulls which is displayed in Russian Painting Gallery, as if it were the photograph of 1915 Armenian genocide, in the cover of a pamphlet used to introduce a conference entitled ‘Der Volkermord and den Armenien vor Gericht (The Armenian Genocide on Trial). Tessa Hoffman had to admit his forgery during the trial of Doğu Perinçek held in Switzerland in March 2007, in which he was listened as a wittness.

Atatürk’s photograph: The large poster with ‘FACE OF DENIAL-DOES NOT LIE’ related to a conference given by Dr Vahram Shemmasian, Ardashes Kassakhian and Dr Levon Marashlian, at UCLA on April 14, 2005, organized by Armenian Genocide Commemoration Committee of Alpha Epsilon Omega, (www.genocideevents.com/cities/losangeles.html) was just a scandal:The photo depicted the founder of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk, sitting on a chair outside a house with the corpse of a young girl with her innards exposed to the elements. Soon, the original of this photo was found by the Turks: It was a photograph of Ataturk for his wife Latife Hanım as a souvenir, posing with some ‘cute dog puppies’ at his feet. Two photos were printed in the July 1, 2005 issue of Hurriyet (://webarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/2005/07/01/665930.asp), as ‘a forgery scandal’.

It is another outstanding point that no dissenting comment was ever heard. What UCLA’s ethical committee did was to erase the handwritten note and doctor a photo of Armin Wengler in place of the puppies. This degree of base falsification and slandering must have suited the present status of UCLA, an institution of higher learning dominated by Armenophile scholars, and where Prof Stanford Shaw’s home was bombed in 1977, just because he did not support the Armenian thesis. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/16/armenian-crime-amnesia/

13
lazlee
June 13, 2008
Well, Richard, in light of the fact that governments such as Sweden and the U.K. that have considered the issue have expressly refused to accept genocide claims pushed by Armenians, the fact that the U.N. has not accepted the label and in light of the fact that the most preeminent third party scholars of Ottoman history refuse the accept the genocide label, it sounds like it was appropriate for the Institute of Turkish Studies to request Quataert to resign.

14
Lucrèce
June 13, 2008
Alfred Grosser
Professor Emeritus, the Paris Institute of Political Science, author of the preface to Vahakn Dadrian
Very funny. Mr. Grosser is also the author of the postface to Mr. Friedländer’s book, Pie XII et le Troisième Reich, where he praises the work of Mr. Lewy.

15
jonathan
June 13, 2008
It would be ludicrous if the Swedish Parliament decided that there
was a "genocide", because Swedish archives are full of evidence (reports written by Swedish officers and under officers who were sent to Turkey during the expatriation of Armenians after they revolted against the Ottoman Army , in 1915) that no "genocide" has taken place. Instead, Ottomans have paid daily moneys to Armenians, (half sums to the children) during their plight away from the war zone to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and as far as Yemen.

Considerable amount of Armenians immigrated to France and the U.S.A. then as well, and many remained in Turkey. This is why millions of Armenians are living in all these places today. If there were a "genocide", there wouldn’t be any Armenians living in these places today. The expatriation decision was given by the German general commanding the Ottoman army then.

What is inexplainable, why did Asala (the Armenian terrorist organisation) killed close to hundred Turkish Republic diplomats, or 70.000 Turks near lake Van, before the 1915 Ottoman-British war, or recently the Azerbaidjan Turks in Nagorna- Karabach .
Swedish officers’ and under officers’ reports are visible in the Swedish archives. If Armenians open up their own archives, their lies will be visible to the entire world.
Visit the following sites for more info:
www.turkuaz.us www.turkishdigest.com www.wearetheturks.org

16
Jason, Managing Editor
June 13, 2008
A good summary of why "appeal to authority" is considered a logical fallacy.

Anyone who says that the question of whether there was an "Armenian genocide" can be determined by the fact that the "International Association of Genocide Scholars" or any other group of activists posing as experts says so should be pointed at and laughed at and sent for a class in remedial logic. If you can’t analyze and argue the data yourself, you have no business taking a public stand on the issue at all.

And anyone who accuses me of being a paid Turkish agent for saying this should Show Me The Money, because I could really use it.

17
Hally
June 13, 2008
You raise a good point Jason.

It’s like this whole debate for Armenian genocide proponents reduces down to a junior high school popularity contests: "I collected more signatures, ergo, I’m right."

It’s all about quantity, not quality, which is probably why there are so many forgeries and falsified documents - they can very effectively be, and are, used to capture support of those who don’t know anything about the issue.

18
Merel
June 14, 2008
Everyone knows Sweden only denied the AG to please Turkey and it’s satisfy its relations. The AG has actually already been recognized by the US some 57 years before.

"…it has recently come to light that 57 years ago the United States government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in a document submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court. This half a century old reference to the Armenian Genocide was discovered by Prof. William A. Schabas who posted it on the website "PhD Studies in Human Rights," on June 4, 2008. Prof. Schabas, a world renown expert on genocide and international law, is director of The Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, Galway.This document, filed by the Government of the United States with ICJ, is included in the May 28, 1951 ICJ Report titled: "Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

The argument about the Muslim casualties in the 1915 is ridiculous. To compare the Muslim deaths to what happened to the Armenians is ignorant. Just consider the following in the WW2 27 million Russians died while only 6 Jews, why is the Jewish deaths called a genocide? Cause all of you who deny the Armenian Genocide should pick up a book and read one !

19
Jason, Managing Editor
June 14, 2008
Ah, "everyone knows…" Yet another opportunity to highlight a common logical fallacy. And in combination with the “world renown [sic] expert” appeal to authority without any apparent sign of individual thought or analysis on the part of the commenter, it’s a two-fer with a grammatical blunder perched like a cherry on top!

Point at you. Laugh at you. Seriously, its like shooting ducks in a barrel with some of these trollers….

20
R
June 14, 2008
Yes there are ”quite some” spelling and grammar mistakes on this blog.

21
robocaller
June 14, 2008
Jason,

Actually, "everyone knows" in that instance was used as a statement of what the author believes; and not as the basis for a logical argument. No offense, but logical fallacy nazis are becoming as tedious as as grammar nazis.

22
robocaller
June 14, 2008
ie, if I were to say "Everyone knows Ahmedinejad is just pandering to political elements in his country" I’m not constructing an argument, I’m trying to assert a fact that I think people are not acknowledging. At worse in that case "everyone knows" is a rhetorical device. But its not a logical fallacy until I say "everyone knows … therefore its true"

23
Lucrèce
June 14, 2008
To compare the Muslim deaths to what happened to the Armenians is ignorant. Just consider the following in the WW2 27 million Russians died while only 6 Jews, why is the Jewish deaths called a genocide? Cause all of you who deny the Armenian Genocide should pick up a book and read one !

The casualities of Jews in Poland represent around 90% of the prewar population, and almost 100% in Serbia (see, for example, Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, 2003; and Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, Bantam, 1986).

The casualities of Armenians in the vilayet of Van, between 1914 and 1919, represent aroun 50% of the prewar population. In the same district, the Muslims casualities represent around 62% of the prewar population.

70% of the Muslims villages were destroyed by the Russian army and the Armenian gangs during the WWI, in this vilayet. 33% of the Armenian and mixed villages were destroyed by Kurdish gangs.
Reference of this figures:

louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Niles_and_Sutherland.pdf

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Source: PoliGazette

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