Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/ريموند إبراهيم: الإبادة الأرمنية على يد العثمانيين مستمرة في /زمن إردوغان الإخونجيBiden’s recognition of Armenian Genocide shows Turkey’s fading influence/اعتراف بايدن بالإبادة الأرمنية يضعف نفوذ تركيا اردوغان الإخونجي

Biden’s recognition of Armenian Genocide shows Turkey’s fading influence/اعتراف بايدن بالإبادة الأرمنية يضعف نفوذ تركيا اردوغان الإخونجي
Kristina Jovannovski/The Media Line/April 24/2021

The Armenian Genocide Forges On
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/April 24/2021
ريموند إبراهيم: الإبادة الأرمنية على يد العثمانيين مستمرة في زمن إردوغان الإخونجي

في بداية العام 1915 كان يعيش في تركيا حوالي مليونين من الأرومن في يومنا هذا لم يبقى منهم سوى 60 ألفاً.

“At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000…. denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.” — The Genocide Education Project.

ليس فقط تركيا ترفض الإعتراف بإدة الأرمن بل هي مستمرة في جريمتها وهذا ما مارسته مؤخراً في ناكونو كرباخ.

Not only has Turkey repeatedly denied culpability for the Armenian Genocide; it appears intent on reigniting it, most recently by helping Azerbaijan wage war on Armenia in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, which again erupted into armed conflict in late 2020.

تركيا عادت إلى القوقاز بعد 100 سنة لإكمال جريمة إبادة الأرمن

“Why has Turkey returned to the South Caucasus 100 years [after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]? To continue the Armenian Genocide.” — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Facebook, October 1, 2020.

These mercenaries and their Azerbaijani partners, among other ISIS-like behavior, “tortured beyond recognition” an intellectually disabled 58-year-old Armenian woman by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet — before murdering her. Her family was only able to identify her by her clothes.

Answering the question, “If you could get away with one thing, what would you do?” — asked to random passersby on the streets of Turkey — a woman recently replied on video: “What would I do? Behead 20 Armenians.” She then looked directly at the camera and smiled while nodding her head.

Much of this genocidal hatred should be unsurprising: Turkish public school textbooks, as a recent study found, continue demonizing Armenians — as well as Jews and Christians.

Armenian churches have been desecrated after coming under Azerbaijani control during and since the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute erupted into armed conflict in late 2020 — despite promises from the Azerbaijani authorities to protect them.

Today, April 24th, is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking 106 years since the start of the Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman Turks massacred approximately 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.

Most objective historians who have examined the topic unequivocally agree that it was a deliberate, calculated genocide. According to the Genocide Education Project:

“More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse. A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years [more than double the amount of time the invading Islamic Turks had occupied Anatolia, now known as “Turkey”] lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century. At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

“Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.”

Not only has Turkey repeatedly denied culpability for the Armenian Genocide; it appears intent on reigniting it, most recently by helping Azerbaijan wage war on Armenia in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, which again erupted into armed conflict in late 2020.

As Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, observed in October 2020: “Why has Turkey returned to the South Caucasus 100 years [after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]? To continue the Armenian Genocide.”

During this recent conflict, which did not concern it, Turkey sent sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups.” According to French President Emmanuel Macron, they — including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division were sent from Syria and Libya to terrorize and slaughter Armenians. The Hamza Division reportedly kept naked women in prison while operating in Syria.

These mercenaries and their Azerbaijani partners, among other ISIS-like behavior, “tortured beyond recognition” an intellectually disabled 58-year-old Armenian woman by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet — before murdering her. Her family was only able to identify her by her clothes.

“Armenians,” according to a December 2020 report, “are being brutalized” and have “lost territory to their jihadist neighbors before agreeing to a cease-fire enforced by Russia…. Prior to violating the so-called peace agreement, the Turkish Muslims of Azerbaijan did as Muhammad commanded in beheading Christians.”

The report linked to a video of soldiers in camouflage overpowering a struggling, elderly Armenian man to the ground, before casually carving at his throat with a knife.

“Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of violating the peace deal first,” the report continues, “but observers note the only provocation Muslims need to attack Armenians is their continued existence.”

Anti-infidel rhetoric underscores this view. A captured terrorist confessed that he was “promised a monthly 2000 dollar payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar for each beheaded ‘kafir.'” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for non-Muslims who fail to submit to Islamic authority, which by default makes them enemies worthy of slavery or death.)

Armenian churches that came under Azerbaijani control have been desecrated — despite promises from the Azerbaijani authorities to protect them. In one instance, a soldier — it is unclear whether he was an Azeri or a jihadi mercenary from Syria or Iraq — was videotaped standing on top of a church chapel, where the cross had been broken off, and triumphantly shouting “Allahu Akbar!” Azerbaijani forces also shelled and destroyed Holy Savior, an iconic Armenian cathedral which was “consecrated in 1888 but was damaged during the March 1920 massacre of Armenians of the city by Azerbaijanis and experienced a decades-long decline.”

More recently, according to a March 29, 2021 report, during just two weeks, at least three Armenian churches in the Nagorno-Karabakh region were recently vandalized or destroyed by Azerbaijani forces — even though a ceasefire had been declared in November. Video footage of the desecration of one of these churches shows Azerbaijani troops entering the Christian place of worship, and then laughing, mocking, kicking, and defacing Christian items inside it, including a fresco of the Last Supper. Turkey’s flag appears on the Azerbaijani servicemen’s uniforms, further implicating the Erdogan government of involvement. As they approach, one of the Muslim soldiers says, “Let’s now enter their church, where I will perform namaz” — a reference to Muslim prayers; when Muslims pray inside a non-Muslim temple, it immediately becomes a mosque.

In response to this video, Arman Tatoyan, an Armenian human rights activist, issued a statement:

“The President of Azerbaijan, and the country’s authorities have been implementing a policy of hatred, enmity, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Armenia, citizens of Armenia and the Armenian people for years. The Turkish authorities have done the same or have openly encouraged the same policy.”

As an example, he said that Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev had proudly stated in early March that “the younger generation has grown up with hatred toward the enemy ” — meaning Armenians.

Such hate, a precursor to genocide, seems evident everywhere. One need only listen to a Turkish man rant in a video about how all Armenians are “dogs,” and that any Armenians found in Turkey should be slaughtered:

“What is an Armenian doing in my country? Either the state expels them or we kill them. Why do we let them live?… We will slaughter them when the time comes…. This is Turkish soil. How are we Ottoman grandchildren?…. The people of Turkey… have honor, dignity, and Allah must cut the heads of the Armenians in Turkey. It is dishonorable for anyone to meet and not kill an Armenian… If we are human, let us do this—let us do it for Allah…. Everyone listening, if you love Allah, please spread this video of me to everyone…”

Answering the question, “If you could get away with one thing, what would you do?” — asked to random passersby on the streets of Turkey — a woman recently replied on video: “What would I do? Behead 20 Armenians.” She then looked directly at the camera and smiled while nodding her head.

Much of this genocidal hatred should be unsurprising: Turkish public school textbooks, as a recent study found, continue demonizing Armenians — as well as Jews and Christians.

If Turks, who are not affected by the Armenian/Azerbaijani conflict, feel this way, why it should be a shock that any number of Azerbaijanis do, too? “We [Azerbaijanis],” noted Nurlan Ibrahimov, head of the press service of Qarabag football club of Azerbaijan, “must kill all Armenians—children, women, the elderly. [We] need to kill [them] without [making a] distinction. No regrets, no compassion.”

Today, therefore, marking the anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide, we would do well to remember not only what happened then, but what is clearly being primed to happen again.

*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar, The Al Qaeda Reader, and Crucified Again, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17304/armenian-genocide

Biden’s recognition of Armenian Genocide shows Turkey’s fading influence
Kristina Jovannovski/The Media Line/April 24/2021
Previous US presidents have avoided using the term ‘genocide’ out of fear of angering key NATO ally
US President Joe Biden’s expected recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings of Armenians as genocide is a sign of Turkey’s waning influence over Washington, analysts told The Media Line.
Biden is expected to make the recognition on Saturday, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, according to US reports, which cited unnamed officials.
Turkey’s foreign minister told a local news channel that such a move would harm relations with the United States.
That sentiment was echoed by Turkey’s main opposition party, The Republican People’s Party, in a statement released on Thursday, denouncing the possible move by Biden.
“This is unjust, unwarranted and inappropriate. We do not accept this characterization,” the party said in its statement.
Turkey, where many revere the Ottoman Empire, accepts that Armenians were killed but has long refuted equating the deaths with genocide.
“Genocide recognition is going to be a large blow to the Turkish government,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Sabancı University in Istanbul.
He says Biden has been angered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies that went against US interests and believes the Turkish president can’t respond too strongly while he is dealing with a major spike in COVID-19 cases and an economic crisis in his country.
Relations with the US are especially important to Turkey’s economy, which strongly relies on foreign investment.
A 2018 diplomatic dispute between the two countries over Turkey’s detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson led to Washington placing sanctions on Ankara which sent Turkey’s currency into free fall.
Economists said the image of Ankara arguing with the biggest economy in the world played more of a role in the economic crisis than the sanctions themselves.
Esen told The Media Line that the recognition of genocide would show how low US-Turkish relations have sunk, considering previous presidents avoided using the term so that they would not upset an important NATO ally.
Turkey has made a slew of decisions since the dispute that have harmed ties with Washington, including launching an offensive against US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria and purchasing an advanced Russian anti-missile defense system, the S-400s, which led to Ankara being kicked out of the US F-35 joint strike fighter program.
“I think the deterioration in US-Turkish relations really is the big difference maker here,” said Alan Makovsky, a senior fellow for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, who previously worked on Turkish affairs at the US State Department.
Turkey’s geopolitical position, bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria, has made it a valuable NATO ally, including by hosting a base which was used by the US to launch attacks against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Makovsky told The Media Line that a Biden recognition of the Armenian deaths as genocide would be a signal to Turkey that it doesn’t have the amount of leverage it believed it did.
“It’s a problematic relationship. The US is starting to hedge its bets a bit … people still see [Turkey] as important strategically but I think Turkey has lost its veto power in certain areas in the US, including on this issue,’ he said.
Makovsky added that the lack of a strong reaction from Ankara after the US Congress passed a resolution to recognize the deaths as genocide showed there probably would be no major fallout from such a move.
Even before he became president, Biden said he would take a tough line with Erdogan, telling The New York Times he would support the opposition.
Since taking office, Biden has not held a phone call with Erdogan even as the Turkish president attempts to strengthen relations with his Western allies.
Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament with the main opposition party, told The Media Line that Turkey would likely act the same as it did to other countries which have recognized the genocide, such as by recalling the US ambassador.
Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey program for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such a clash with the US would be short-lived but welcomed by Erdogan who could use the row to distract the public from the country’s domestic issues while playing to his nationalist base.
He said the recognition of genocide by both the Senate and House of Representatives in 2019 showed how bipartisan skepticism of Erdogan has become in the US.
“Ultimately, the Erdogan government’s policies have isolated Turkey in Washington,” he said. “Turkey ended up with no friends to advocate for Ankara’s position in Washington.”