World Jewish News

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin: ''It is our moral obligation to remember and remind others of the tragedy that befell the Armenian people, which lost over a million of its sons during the First World War."

Israel lawmakers note Armenia mass killings

Israel's parliament on Tuesday held a discussion marking the Turkish mass killings of Armenians, in a move likely to further strain already tense relations with Ankara. "It is our moral obligation to remember and remind others of the tragedy that befell the Armenian people, which lost over a million of its sons during the First World War," speaker Reuven Rivlin told lawmakers. Tuesday's discussion was the third consecutive year in which the Knesset has held such a hearing to note "the anniversary of the killing of the Armenian people," as requested by seven MPs from various ranks. Parliament rejected in 2007 a motion to recognise the Turkish mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915 as a "genocide." Rivlin opened the plenary discussion by saying Jews in Ottoman-ruled Palestine in 1915 had been only too aware of what was happening to the Armenians. "Residents of Jerusalem saw them arriving in their thousands, starving," he said. "Testimonies of a massacre were clear and sharp." He said the Armenian killings were noted by the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. "We were next in line," Rivlin said. "Those who conceived the Final Solution regarding the Jews got the impression that when the time came the world would be silent, as it was silent during the murder of the Armenians." But he said recognising the tragedy was not meant as casting blame on modern Turkey "or against the present Turkish government." "Perhaps the government of Israel will at last recognise -- like 27 other countries around the world -- the massacre of the Armenian people," said Zehava Galon of the opposition Meretz party. Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, who represented the government during the discussion, said the Knesset should seriously debate the issue, and recognise it as genocide if it reaches that conclusion. "The whole discussion is taking place on the background of relations with Turkey," he said. "As Jews and Israelis, we should have a special obligation to learn about human tragedies." In December, a parliamentary committee held a landmark public debate on recognising genocide in Armenia. Past hearings had taken place behind closed doors. Proposals by lawmakers to hold debates on the issue had been rejected by Israeli governments over the years, when ties with Turkey were warmer. But relations plunged into deep crisis in 2010, when Israeli forces killed nine Turks in a raid on a Turkish ferry, part of an activist flotilla seeking to breach Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Last year Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and axed military ties and defence trade, while Israel cancelled completion of a contract to sell Turkey aerial surveillance equipment. Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey strongly denies this, saying 300,000 Armenians and as many Turks were killed in civil conflict when the Christian Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans.

EJP