Author Mark Arax has written an article in Salon that details allegations against the Los Angeles Times in killing a story on how the Israeli lobby was helping efforts to deny the Armenian genocide in exchange for Turkey’s support of Israel. Despite the focus on media issues on this blog, I am embarrassed to say that I was unaware of the controversy until this column.
While writing at the LA Times, Arax was a respected journalist nominated by the newspaper for a Pultizer Prize. He is also Armenian, which he insists should not matter, but it appears to have mattered to his editors.
He left the newspaper after a controversy over an article that he wrote on the connection between Israel and Turkey in fighting recognition of the genocide.
He is reporting in Salon how groups and leading Jewish figures have recently come out to recognize the genocide. He suggests that this change came when Turkey confronted Israel over the recent deaths on the aid ships to Gaza.
Arax recounts how he wrote an article on how the “Israel lobby in the U.S. has played a quiet but pivotal role in pressuring Congress, the State Department and successive presidents to defeat simple congressional resolutions commemorating the 1.5 million Armenian victims.”
This was in the spring of 2007 and resulted in the first story of his killed on the eve of publication in his 20-year journalistic career.
Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel and was viewed as a critical ally for Israel. Arax wrote the article on how the powerful Israeli lobby in Washington reinforced this relationship by blocking genocide recognition. He recounts an encounter with a Turkish diplomat who immediately asked if he was an Armenian. He allegedly questioned how there could have been genocide if Arax was standing in front of him, stating “So both of your grandfathers survived, huh?”
Notably, Arax was not the first to make this connection. He interviewed Yair Auron, a professor at the Open University of Israel who had authored the 2003 book “The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide.”
He also interviewed Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League in New York after he came from a meeting allegedly coordinating lobbying with Turkish officials. He quotes Foxman as saying “[o]ur focus is Israel. If helping Turkey helps Israel, then that’s what we’re in the business of doing. . . . Was it genocide? It was wartime. Things get messy.”
Arax says that his editors killed the story because of his Armenian background.
My editor in Washington was pleased. . . . The weekend came and went, but the story held . . .
“But why?” I asked.
“Your byline,” he said.
“My byline?”
Then it hit me. Even as the paper was nominating one of my other stories for a Pulitzer Prize, on this story I was an Armenian.
. . . The managing editor said I was not an objective reporter because I had once signed a petition stating that the Armenian Genocide was a historical fact.
I had never signed such a petition. But if I had, how did this prove bias? Our own style book at the Times recognized the genocide as a historical fact.
“Would you tell a Jewish reporter that he couldn’t write about Holocaust denial because he believed the Holocaust was a fact?” I asked.
His answer was to reassign my story to a colleague in Washington who covered Congress. That this reporter was Jewish — and the story dealt with Jewish denial of the genocide — didn’t seem to faze the managing editor. The colleague, who may not have had a choice in the matter, proceeded to gut my story. By the time he was done, there was not a single mention of Jewish denial.
It is a disturbing account. Arax says that a later internal probe found his article to be unbiased and that the managing editor was later forced out.
Source: Salon.
Congress and the State Department have also treaded lightly on the Armenian genocide for decades, worrying about offending a NATO ally. Now that Turkey’s Prime Minister wants the country more aligned with radical Islamic states, all bets are off.
If the price is right, would Israel help those who deny the Jewish Holocaust?
Nal,
You are sly. But do not forget that Armenia is held to be the “Birth Place” of Christianity…
How refreshing to come here and find another disinterested thread on Israel, when it seems that most blogs, news sources, and commentaries around the world are consumed with other international issues.
And it took some careful digging to come up with this 8 day-old story by a disgruntled reporter, as it was out-shadowed at Salon itself by the 3 day-old story:
But I guess the hard-breaking story by Mr Arax is of more contemporary interest, being as it is an account of of an article written three years ago about an alleged decades-long conspiracy, so …. sorry, I guess it wasn’t of contemporary interest.
Oh dear. I see it was not late-breaking either, as the story about the Pro-Israel letter is nearly one week more recent.
So, why is the article by Mr Arax of interest to the readers of this blog? Oh yes, it must be just the latest episode of a string of many such stories about the Armenian genocide. Surely that’s it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
There is actually a history of Israeli/Jewish downplaying of other genocides (the Armenian in particular) — see Norman Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry.”
Turkey does have a terrible human rights record, most recently with the Kurds. I always wonder if countries bashing each other for each’s terrible human rights record actually helps any of the people being oppressed. Surely it is easy fodder for each country’s respective politicians, but does it do any good for the oppressed? I’m still undecided…
Another example: China and the US’s yearly war of words on human rights:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/12/c_13208219.htm
And I see that the “pro-Israel” propagandists have arrived in the comments! Thanks to the magic of computer software!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool
That’s quite an accusation. Do you have any evidence that I am ‘propagandist” or are you just pretending to be a moron?
Ginger,
I don’t see you protesting nearly as much when the frequent stories about Britain, Iran, China, Canada, , etc. pop up.
This is twice now you’ve made the complaint that the Professor is unfairly bashing Israel. Without offering one shred of proof that he unfairly targets Israel. Well, let’s see if we can’t get a rough comparison about how much he talks about different countries.
A Google search for:
Israel and Jonathan Turley; 50,800 results
England and Jonathan Turley; 62,600 results
Canada and Jonathan Turley; 54,500 results
United States and Jonathan Turley: 78,200 results
China and Jonathan Turley; 55,900 results
Iran and Jonathan Turley; 36,600 results
Mexico and Jonathan Turley; 66,000 results
France and Jonathan Turley; 46,600 results
Iraq and Jonathan Turley; 48,200 results
Afghanistan and Jonathan Turley; 37,600 results
Well now, if anything JT’s a misangloist
misangloist = anglophobe
Well. “Gingerbaker” used a lot of words in his/her first post. (S)he talked about a lot of stuff.
None of them had anything to do with whether it is true or false that this collaboration of denial existed and is currently either over or on a hiatus until Turkey does something differently.
Personally, I’d be very interested to know if the so-called “Christian Zionist” community was actively involved in this. On one hand, many or most Armenians would describe themselves as Christian, and evangelicals/fundamentalists may see Armenia as a potential market to expand into. On the other hand, most Armenian Christians are of the variety that not would be acceptable to US fundamentalists, and the fundamentalists’ apocryphal fantasies about the “end times” and the role of Israel in those fantasies may outweigh the other interests.
Many people who want lasting peace and security for the people of Israel are very frustrated by the “shooting self in foot” activities (like this genocide denial or the poor handling of the Gaza relief flotilla) that pro-Israel reactionaries and right-wingers engage in. Maybe international support for Israel, no matter what stupid things are said and done in it’s name, has an un-ending, overwhelming supply of unconditional political capital to draw upon. But if that supply starts dwindling, then Israel will be much better off the sooner it switches to being smart, restrained and honest whenever possible. (Note that fundamentalist Christianity in the US has its historic peaks and troughs. We are at or probably past one of those peaks. Over the coming decades the Glen Beck-style support for Israel will wane as the religious fervor dies down. That’s one source of irrational, unconditional support for Israel in the US political environment that is going away…)
Blouise,
Not especially, -phobe meaning fear. Mis- meaning hate. While it’s generally true we fear what we hate, I have yet to hear of JT being reduced to a quivering mass of jello at the thought of having to eat some fish and chips.
Gyges,
The numbers you cite don’t really mean anything. If you’re trying to tell how much he talks about a given country, a good first step would be to restrict the search to just this website. E.g. searching google for “Israel site:jonathanturley.org”
Israel 616
England 581
Canada 531
Iran 524
France 330
Those numbers don’t mean much either because they include comments and links to other stories that show up on the same page, but it’s closer to the search I think you intended.
—
For my own part, I have noticed quite a few stories critical of Israel recently, but Israel has also been in the news frequently in the past few months.
FFN,
I went to that group’s alerts page and see nothing about Turley’s blog. That seems like an inappropriate accusation to make without doing a little research.
Gyges,
Well it’s clear from those numbers that JT must hate America worst of all with a 20% variance over the English! That would of course explain why he’s an internationally respected US Constitutional scholar. He hates us so much he values teaching the very core of our legal system above other, possibly more lucrative, endeavors. Now that’s commitment! And given the rest of those numbers and the Mrs. JT’s Jewish heritage, perhaps she should be concerned he’s having an affair with a Mexican Chinese Brit ex-pat from Canada! Or perhaps a Chinese Canadian raised by Mexicans and living in England. I can see the tabloids now.
Was that sarcastic enough?
I’m a little off my A game today.
Ginger,
Stimulus – response. It’s a key diagnostic. As are patterns. There are no patterns suggesting Gyges is a moron. Quite the opposite actually.
Timeliness. Truth or the revelation of obfuscation of the truth has no time limit.
James,
and I quote: “Well, let’s see if we can’t get a rough comparison about how much he talks about different countries.” Rough being an important part of that statement.
Interestingly enough, you seemed to have left off all the countries I originally listed that have higher numbers in your search. In fact, they have significantly higher numbers; The U.S. and China numbers are both over double Israel’s, and Iraq a couple hundred more.
The pattern I see is simply this:
The Prof picks stories about
1) Countries misbehaving (sparing no one)
2) Constitutionally related issues
3) Abuse of power issues
4) General Weirdness, Legal and otherwise
5) Animals
The frequency of their appearance seems to relate to who is in the news at the moment and a certain small segment are backfill for items he may have missed being a very busy guy.
As far as accusations go? Ginger, you threw the first stone in suggesting somehow the Prof was untoward in his treatment of the Israeli government. I submit that if the Israeli government hadn’t been shooting itself in the foot so much internationally, perhaps they wouldn’t be getting any attention. And never forget, being against their hawkish government is not the equivalent of being Anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. Just like hating the abuses of the Bush (and now Obama) Administrations isn’t the same thing as being Anti-American.
It is an interesting study to examine what countries, or subdivisions of countries, have been willing to recognize the Armenian “genocide” and the positions of those that have not. Some governments, like France, were forced by their parliaments to change national policy no matter what the fall-out with Turkey. Some countries, like Iran, have recognized the term “genocide” with respect to the death of the Armenians at the hands of Turks, because until recently they had other reasons to be against Turkey. In Iran’s case, they use the term “Armenian Genocide” because they oppose Turkey’s previouisly warm relationship with NATO and Israel and dislike the secularism of Turkish society. As Turkey’s government moves the country away from secularism and alliances with Israel and the US, it will be interesting to see whether Iran will adopt the Turkish view in order to nuture an Iranian-Turkish relationship. Some countries, like Israel and the UK — who have legitimate needs to nuture a friendly Turkish military — avoided the term “genocide” saying that such decisions are better left to historians than politicians. As long as Jerusalem thinks that Israeli-Turkish relations are salvageable, I doubt that they will allow the Armenian issue to push relations over the side.
What concerns me more is how indifferent Western cultures were to the genocides going on in the past couple of decades in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and th Darfur region of Sudan. It is one thing to refuse to apply a politically-infalmable term to a historical event, it is another thing to stand idly by while genocide is going on in 4th world countries. What really ranckles is that while Darfurians and Rwandans are raped, murdered, and more, all some governments can do is complain about fences in Israel.
Gyges,
I wasn’t trying to make a point about Israel being a high number, I was just pointing out that an unrestricted google search doesn’t even provide a rough estimate and pointing you towards a somewhat better method. I provided all the numbers I did searches for — I thought it was self-evident that the United States would be way way way higher and that most stories dealing with the US would just list the name of the state or city, rather than include the phrase “united states,” and I didn’t bother to search for lots of countries that you did, including China and Mexico.
B.I.L. :
What I am saying is that since I started coming here ( 4-6 months ago? – I am bad with time) I have seen quite a preponderance of posts on Israel, all of them in a negative light. Now, whether or not the articles and Prof. Turley’s commentary have been on the mark or not is open to debate. But it seems indisputable to me that the tenor of these postings by Prof Turley is not balanced. The topic of Israel comes up here often, uncharitably, and occasionally in gratuitous fashion.
Prof. Turley actually used the occasion of America’s debt crisis as on opportunity to single out its 200 million dollar expenditures ( as I pointed out at the time, that is 1/5000th of our debt) on Israel’s defense systems. After complaining about them a few days before!
Now, I like Prof. Turley. I actually recommended him, in a conversation with family last weekend, as a much better choice as a Supreme Court nominee than anyone Obama has put forward. But every day here reading his blog makes it more abundantly clear that he has a bug in his butt about Israel.
My comments were not directed at Gyges, but rather at FormerFederalNothing. Sorry if you felt I was addressing you, Gyges.
OK, now everyone can have a big group hug.
—
Before I got sidetracked responding to comments, I was actually planning on posting that I thought the underlying analysis (Israeli supporters lobbying against recognizing the Armenian genocide because Turkey was an ally) was really interesting.
Does anyone know if they were couching their arguments in terms of realpolitik or were they arguing that it factually never happened?
Ginger,
Even if I had thought they were directed at me, I’ve got thicker skin than that.
I suggest this is a case of confirmation bias. I challenge you to find a government that is portrayed in a mainly positive light. The fact is that a large part of the professor’s job is to be critical of government actions.
Since Israel’s an important ally, and a large part of our of our foreign policy revolves around our support of Israel, I’d say it’s fair game for criticism. On par with say, England, or Canada… which coincidentally receive around the same amount of negative attention (England having 30 less hits according to James’s search). Considering how little attention those two countries receive from the mainstream media in this country, I’d say that’s pretty telling. On the other hand, The U.S. and China both receive WAY more attention from the Prof. one being his native land, the other being a major trade partner with an abysmal human rights record.
So tell me, what is inappropriate about the amount of negative attention Israel receives on this blog? Keep in mind that every government receives almost exclusively negative attention.
James,
If I remember right, the U.S. is legally obligated to treat governments with a recent history of genocide in a different manner than it currently treats Turkey. So the decision as to ‘recognizing’ the Armenian genocide has real concrete implications.
That’s not to say that language doesn’t have any major implications on it’s own. I’ll refer you to Orwell for that (because I can’t seem to resist posting the link)
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part42
Gyges,
I’m not sure this would fall under the category of recent. It happened during WWI and concerned actions by the Ottoman Empire, not Turkey. I don’t think that the Holocaust has an automatic impact on our foreign relations with modern Germany, and the Armenian genocide predates the Holocaust by thirty years. It’s only a big deal politically today because Turkey refuses to acknowledge it happened.
Gyges,
I think you’re probably right about confirmation bias (or more likely some type of anti-confirmation bias where one is more sensitive to contrary opinions to what one believes).
I think part of the difference in perception for me might also be that I view criticism of Canada and England as criticism of specific aspects of our joint culture, e.g. the nanny state, photographing police, etc.. I see criticism of Iran and China as properly criticizing totalitarian aspects of an Other. Israel is some weird middle ground for me, where I don’t chalk up criticism of them as criticism of a specific aspect of American/Canadian/British culture, but I don’t see them as remotely like Iran or China either.
James M.–
“It’s only a big deal politically today because Turkey refuses to acknowledge it happened.”
**********
I believe genocide is ALWAYS a big deal. It matters not when or where it happens/happened. It’s best to investigate/study occurrences of genocide in the present day/in the past in hopes of preventing further occurrences of it in the future.
Gyges,
anglophobe – a person who is averse to or dislikes England and all things English (Merriam-Webster)
Misangloist isn’t a recognized word in the english language.
Elaine M.,
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I did say “a big deal politically“, which I stand by. If Turkey had never denied what happened, other countries voting to recognize the genocide as such wouldn’t be a political issue now.
Blouise,
Give it time. New words are great, as long as they aren’t Malamanteaus.
http://xkcd.com/739/
James,
Eh, I’ve been wrong before, and am this time. It happens.
Gingerbaker, alleging that or debating why the Professor chooses to write frequently about any country and weather or not that coverage is favorable or not misses the fundamental point that he can write about anything he chooses, in any light he chooses, as often as he choses or not al all; it’s his house. Israel is to many, myself included, no more or less than any other country and if the Professor chooses to write about it or not, in whatever light, is not a matter for my criticism. I may debate the actual issue but the proclivity of the Professor to post about the issue is his decision alone. Do you visit your neighbor’s and bitch about the color they have painted their living room or the meal they feed you? Same thing.
“Do you visit your neighbor’s and bitch about the color they have painted their living room”
No, LK. Speaking for myself, I don’t.
But I did go blind for a week once.
True story.
Gyges,
Truthiness didn’t take very long but then Colbert is pushy …
BIL, you would have loved my living-room during our ‘vivid’ period: it was florescent lime green. It started giving us headaches after about 3 weeks so we repainted it. I’ll bite, how did you go blind for a week?
Israel is feeling very isolated these days, a siege mentality has set in. Unfortunately, this has led Israel to sometimes side with Turkey on the Armenian Genocide issue, in order to maintain some relations with Turkey, the only Muslim nation to support it.
BTW, the US also has refused to label the murder of Armenians as “genocide,” voting against such a resolution by Sen. Tom Lantos (a Zionist Jew), in order not to drive Turkey out of NATO.
Unfortunately, international politics usually operates on the well-established principle of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
bk
My grandfather was a full-blooded Armenian who came to this country with a sad tale to tell. My mother told me his mother was raped by a Muslim Turk and all male boys were at risk for being murdered, so they escaped from their land.
Anyway, there is a good deal of discrepancy about the facts of the Armenian “genocide” and a full investigation is warranted (though I doubt the truth can ever be gotten to at this point in history).
I do find it strange that Bruce Fein takes the position that as long as large scale crimes against people are the result of political persecution, it then is not genocide. I understand he is sticking to the letter of the law.
But the only reason it cannot be (legally) genocide is because Joseph Stalin refused to sign on to International Law opposing genocide ONLY if it did not include destroying people because of the political groups they belonged to. In other words, Fein winds up agreeing with Stalin that widespred murder, torture, and cleansing isn’t genocide if it is done for political reasons. Yet, even according to international law, widespread murder, torture and cleansing for religious reasons IS genocide by defintion. This is very strange and twisted moral reasoning.
And wrong, in my opinion.
I am, nevertheless, fond of some of Bruce Fein’s work. He points out, for example, that Japanese authorities were punished for waterboarding American soldiers in WW2. He and Ron Paul have worked together for years (Fein was the legal counsel for Paul’s campaign). He also has done a lot of work to show that Armenians have muddled the facts about the so-called genocide. This is still very essential work to be done.
That said, it is insane to have Turkey or any Muslim nation in NATO. At this point it is even insane to have NATO.
The Turks will likely always be Muslims unless freedom of speech has its way and if a shred of humanity exists somewhere in their world. Muslims are a people who love and adore an old dead guy who married a six year old and started having sex with her when she was 9. Muslims are people who believe this is still acceptable behavior.
It isn’t. It is sick behavior. And you cannot rely morally depraved people to help you build a sane world or to tell the truth.
Mohammad sold and traded women for sex. This is still considered virtuous conduct, even according to the Koran, up to this very day.
If you faced this sort of enemy (and the man handling your daughters, sisters, and mothers that it permits), you might want to lie about them too.
Though, I’m not saying anyone is lying.
I have traveled widely in the Armenian part of Turkey, and have several Armenian friends with very tragic similar stories. The Turks have their stories also, feared the Armenians would ally themselves with the Christian Russians against them. There is a famous battle where a Turkish column marching through Armenia to a lay siege to a Russian fort was ambushed by Armenians in the area and totally wiped out. There was also a very stiff Armenian guerrilla resistance to the Turks in some areas, all of which convinced the Young Turks that they’d better do something to “neutralize” the Armenian threat. There remain a few Armenian towns in N.E. Turkey, which I had the opportunity to visit some yrs ago; they live in abject poverty, and in constant fear of a repeat of the genocide of 1915. But there are also many Armenians living in large cities all over Turkey, well integrated into Turkish life, especially in Istanbul.
The stories related above about Mohammed are ancient history, and have very little to do with life in modern Turkey, any more than modern Catholics are influenced by the Crusades and Inquisition.
bk
I for one do not think Prof. Turley is anti-Israel. I think Israel is acting against its own self interest and most of the press is too afraid of AIPAC to say anything negative or even point out this self-evident fact.
As for Armenia, my mother grew up in Arlington, MA. For some reason, a lot of Armenians settled in the Boston area after the massacre. She has told me stories of her Armenian-American school friends and their families. Believe me, there was a massacre by the Turks and it’s as unbelievable to me that people would deny this fact as it is that people would deny the holocaust.
As for Bruce Fein. How can anyone take him seriously after his encouragement of the Iraq invasion. Just look at him and listen to him. He always gave me the creeps with his corpse like face and squeaky high pitched voice. Seriously, if your mass murder is politically motivated it’s not genocide even though your victims are all of the same ethnicity. Come on.
LK,
Oddly enough lime green was involved. As was canary yellow, turquoise and dark chocolate.
I wasn’t totally blind though.
I saw dead decorators.
(Actually, I’m a bit of a mutant (in more ways than the obvious). I have excellent color vision for a guy.)
I have talked with many Turks about the Armenian genocide. Almost all of them deny such a thing happened. The worst that they will admit to is an expulsion of Armenians, since they fought alongside the Russians when Russia was trying to seize parts of NE Turkey both under the Czars, and after the Revolution. The fact that many thousands of Armenians were driven into the desert and left to die is of no interest to the Turks. They claim these people died of exposure, or were killed by Syrian Arab bandits, since “Turks would never do such a thing.” I did meet one Turk who accepted that such a genocide occurred, but he had been educated in the US, spoke perfect English, and had an American wife. He was an officer in the Turkish army, which he hated, and was an anomaly. Even Turkish Maoist/Marxist students deny the genocide, it’s a point of honor with Turks, and I doubt they’ll ever admit to it. Something like the Japanese attitude towards to murder of millions of Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese, etc. Brazilians are rarely eager to admit the extermination of their indigenous population, etc.
bk
Isabel. Can you provide any internet sources which show Fein supported the Iraq invasion? All I can find is that he declared the invasion unconstitutional.
Stan.
There just isn’t the alleged genocide of 1915. There was also the Turkish slaughter of Armenians in during the years 1894 to 1895 when approx. 100k to 300k Armenians (unarmed civilians) were murdered by Turkish government officials. (Rummel pg 210)
This behavior of the Turks (Muslims) as alleged by the Armenians is in general in keeping with typical Muslim behavior since the time of Mohammad. Though, I realize that that is not sole proof of an Armenian genocide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27friedman.html?hp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070604005.html It looks like Obama surrendered to the Israel lobby.