Comments on: An Armenian Prespective on the Flotilla: Euh, Erdoğan,WHAT?

By: Hasvart Atoragalian

Hasvart Atoragalian — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:32:33 +0000

Um Sarah are you Armenian? I don’t think so, the one who wants to manipulate history here are Arabs like they have always tried to hide the history of Jews being there first in their land, they deny the 2 million Armenians killed. And my OWN family experienced this so if you are not Armenian I suggest you do not talk on behalf of one. Read Hebron Massacre, Read about the Mizrahi Jews, etc. Amot Ketzee. Asvats bae Israel yev Hayastan!!

By: Sara Abu Ghazal

Sara Abu Ghazal — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:44:38 +0000

I have to say, I only approved your comment Hasvart, so that people would see how zionists manage to manipulate history, and by history i mean Armenian genocide.

By: Hasvart Atoragalian

Hasvart Atoragalian — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:18:33 +0000

To this ignorant activist, you know nothing about the Armenians who ended up in Israel/Palestine if you truly knew about this country you would know that these Zionists Mizrahi Jews were in Israel BEFORE 1948 and it was a HASSIDIC family from Hebron who let my family stay in their homes when my grandparents had just arrived there and that righteous family was later murdered by Arabs in the 1929 Hebron Massacre. And this was not the only Hassidic family who let Armenians stay in their homes. I live in Holon, Israel and have many friends who are Jews and most of the PEOPLE in Israel recognize it, they even protested against the government for not accepting it. So if you have a problem go take it with the President not with an entire race. You also probably grew up with Arabs and grew up with the hate you were taught. Many Armenians know about you Armenians in Arab lands and you are not really liked let me tell you that, you are a shame to judge. AMOT KETZEE

By: Zeina Z

Zeina Z — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:18:24 +0000

Great Article, Great Analysis..
Sigh……
Unfortunately, Palestine is used by all leaders in the Arab world in similar ways, to gain popular support while avoiding to address local injustices and discrimination. Hypocricy and double standards persist.
This mobilization along religious lines (Muslim vs Jewish) that Turkey is engaged in is also scary and ocunterproductive for those of us who believe justice and rights have no religious color and statehood and nationality should not be based on ones supposed religious membership. Increased antagonism against the Jewish community in Turkey resulted after the demonstrations along with the threat of violence. This is dangerous and should not be tolerated. There will be more casualities as Turkey redefines its national identity and polices its internal and external borders once again…Amnesia reigns not just in Lebanon unfortunately, everywhere it seems…

By: Sara Abu Ghazal

Sara Abu Ghazal — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:10:31 +0000

what do you mean karim?

By: karim

karim — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:27:07 +0000

There’s no ‘share’ button

By: Paulett

Paulett — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 03:58:42 +0000

Hello! I’m elated to find this discussion site and agree with so much; but right now, and being of both Armenian and Sephardi-Jewish origins from Turkey–living in the USA for over a half century, I must say that it is vitally important to support all efforts to end the suffering of the Palestinians NOW. I know what cruelty happened to the Armenians through my own family, those who died and those scattered throughout the world, and I’m astonished that no one lifted a finger to end the genocide… let us not fall for the manipulative Zionist state’s PR using the Armenian genocide–which Israel is/was always major conniver & obstacle in US and UN, and will continue to deny once the smoke clears (remember, only Jewish suffering is most important, yeah right!!)–to to deny the Palestinian’s human rights. Can you forget the wanton bombing of Lebanon, Gaza, the murder of civilians?? How can we stand by and watch the horror over and over–the deliberate murder of innocent people, deny food, water, children’s minds and bodies stunted forever, deny emergency health care, divert drinking water to fill Israeli settler swimming pools??? Yeah, let’s keep blabbing amongst ourselves while people are dying. That’s what the world did while Armenians were being massacred–and the Israelis are counting on using the issue now and this blowing over once they push it off the front pages! They don’t give a damn about you or what the world thinks. Boycott–BDS–now, that’s all the Israelis care about!!!

By: Nadia

Nadia — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:25:46 +0000

Thanks for this.

@Han of course the changes in the Turkish Israeli relationship are a good thing and I hope it lasts, and anything is better than old school Kemalists for sure, but domestically the difference between them and the AKP is still superficial and I hope we won’t be waiting for changes to fall from the sky.

Even forgetting the relationship with ethnic minorities, the insulting Turkishness laws have got to go; that’s crucial and without it nothing else we’re talking about will ever happen. I mean we’re talking about Turkey admitting its crimes when it doesn’t even let other people, inside or outside the country, say what they want about its history. Maybe a good consequence of all this rebuilding of ties with the Arab world is we can also build links with and support Turks who care about the same things we do. With Turkish Kurds, too, cause as far as I understand there were a lot of Kurds on the flotilla and I don’t think enough people are aware of that.

Anyways, if Israel wants to play the Armenian or the Kurdish card the best thing to do, besides rejecting them, is take the oppourtunity to raise the Palestinian issue back at them and the points they have in common. I have my doubts about how far they will go with that though: the US needs Turkey so long as they have troops in Iraq and knows they can’t really afford to piss them off too much. We talk about Eastern/Western orientations so much but really Turkey is a state looking out for itself, like most states.

@Turk, I hope you’re right!

By: Turk

Turk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:21:53 +0000

The legacy of AtaTurk and the extreme nationalism he preached (basicly racism actually) is the reason to why Turks deny the genocide on armenians. The Zionist among the turks (those that hate arabs because they think that arabs destroyed the turkish empire and hence prefer to support israel, they are ignorant of their own sides involvement in toppling the empire) are those who tend to be the most vocal in denying the genocide on Armenians.

As for the kurds, Its the kemalists that were/are against everything kurdish and what did their ally israel do about that? They trained the PKK to kill turks.

Turkey is currently undergoing change and i believe we will see a real change in attitute towards kurds and Armenians in the future as the ideology of ataturk is coming to light and many have started to reject it. Turkey has been like a dictator state even though we have democracy because of the legacy of ataturk.

Turkey is changing and Erdogan is only the start of that change. When he threatned to expel the armenians in turkey (those who live there without permit), he did so to please the kemalists. The next anti-zionist turkish leader will learn from the misstakes of erdogan and contribute even more to the change and withdraw recognition of the zionist state of israel, improve ties with the armenians and form a joint turkish-armenian comitte to investigate the armenian genocide and give the armenians a closure. Dont be surprised if you find that those who carried out the genocide were also the same turks who collaborated to end the ottoman empire and infiltrated the ottoman army and control and whos later followers were those who were in the firstline of racism against arabs, kurds and armenians while at the same time being pro-israel and among the first to recognize israel.

By: Han

Han — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:13:42 +0000

This is a very accurate and well written piece that I find it very difficult to point out any flaws or mistakes in it.
Thank you,
However I have just one remark that is not specifically related to the subject, but is rather related to the general framework in politics.
What I mean is that Ideals are extremely important, but history taught us before that they “bend” in the face of reality.
So as I totally agree with what you said, but I think that this turn in Turkey’s relationship with Israel is very positive, if it proved to be permanent.
It is positive on several levels if I might explain.
Firstly, any new enemy of Zionism is welcome, this doesn’t mean that it becomes automatically our ally and friend, as the waves of populism spreading throughout the Arab (and Islamic) word. But because it deprives Israel from an important asset. I believe that the demise of Zionism, as a racist ethno-religious ideology, helps the developments of our societies and the reconciliation between the peoples of our region. Zionism represents the remnants of European colonialism and direct intervention in our region, with all the evils it brought with it. (I am not saying that everything was perfect in our region before, but Europeans did aggravate the situation to a rupture, directly and indirectly)
Secondly, The ruling Turkish party, the AKP made some efforts (regardless of how sufficient they are) to reconcile with its Armenian neighbor. One can assume (and hope) that this attempt coupled by political activism in Turkey (such as the flotilla) for the oppressed, might effectively bring Turkey closer to admit its crimes against the Armenians.
Thirdly, Politics is a dirty game, and I think that it is very important for Armenia not to be tempted by the “Israeli Card” to gain favors in the US or for military and economic support, there doesn’t seem to be any indicators for this, but the Israeli press has started stirring up the subject. Another thing that is more related to regional politics is Armenia’s relationship with Turkey’s brethren in Azerbaijan.
Finally, the Arabs should realize that they by no means should compromise the situation of Arab Armenians in order to please “Turkey”. At the same time, They might try to end the animosity between Turks and Armenians thanks to the Armenian communities in Arab countries.
Thanks again