By Israel W. Charny
When the Turkish government demanded the cancellation of all lectures on the Armenian Genocide at Israel's First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and that Armenian lecturers not be allowed to participate, the Israeli government followed suit. This book follows the author’s gutsy campaign against his government and his quest to successfully hold the conference in the face of censorship. A political whodunit based on previously secret Israel Foreign Ministry cables, this book investigates Israel’s overall tragically unjust relationship to genocides of other peoples.
The book also closely examines the figures of Elie Wiesel and Shimon Peres in their interference with the recognition of other peoples’ genocidal tragedies, particularly the Armenian Genocide. Additional chapters by three prominent leaders—a fearless Turk who has paid a huge price in Turkish jails (Ragip Zarakolu), a renowned Armenian American who was one of the earliest writers on the Armenian Genocide (Richard Hovannisian); and a Jew, who was responsible for the selection of all the materials in the pathbreaking U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington (Michael Berenbaum)—provide added perspectives.
Praise:
“Israel Charny has single-handedly produced at least half of the seminal ideas in the history of genocide studies and genocide prevention. I wish there were a Nobel Prize in Genocide Studies. If there were, he should get the first one.”
“Israel Charny has brilliantly captured over a hundred years of evasions and denials by the Turkish Government for the genocide that extinguished the lives of a million and a half Armenian souls. Armenians also lost a thousand years of their culture. This monumental crime against the Armenian nation must be recognized. To do less calls into question the integrity of all those victims of similar crimes, regardless of origin. It is ironic that the person who coined the word ‘genocide’ in 1944, Rafael Lemkin, was himself of Jewish faith, and the State of Israel should have been the first nation to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and I am sure things since then would have been different in the world. I heartily congratulate Charny for deftly exposing the many contradictions in our world towards our nation’s Genocide, and pray that this book will serve the purpose to wake up Israeli politicians.”
“Israel Charny is one of those indefatigable scholars—Jonathan Swift is another—whose fierce indignation is necessary to our age and who fight the most necessary battles at the right moment. Charny’s latest work proclaims that every genocide is unique but that none has the right to claim unique suffering, and that denial is the final stage of genocide. He thus speaks to the future as well as the past. He holds his own Israeli government to account for its failure to acknowledge the 1915 Armenian mass murders as genocide. He even proves that the Israeli authorities invented threats to the Jewish community in Turkey in 1982 in a vain attempt to curtail a Jerusalem Holocaust and genocide conference he helped to arrange—and thus curtail all discussion on the Armenian genocide. At the same time, he makes no cheap shots—he admires Israel even when he undermines its outrageous denial.”
“The book you are holding is a must-read. Here are a Turk, Armenian, and Jew coming together to deliver an intensely poignant and meaningful message to us all: those who deny the reality of a genocide perpetrated upon others largely lose their credibility when speaking of genocides perpetrated against themselves. These documents show us how those who deny the Armenian genocide on the pretext of national security are indirectly admitting their own capability to carry out precisely such a crime themselves.”
Table of Contents
Preface
One is Either for Human Life or Not
Foreword
Who Really Lied? The Turks, Armenians, and Jews Revisited
Yair Auron
Introduction
Summary: The “Good Guys” (Israel) Turn Out to be the Bigger Liars
Chapter 1: The First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide in June 1982 in Tel Aviv Was a Milestone Event on Many Levels
Supplement 1: Program of Conference—How does One Summarize the Learning that Took Place at the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide?
Supplement 2: Responses of Participants in the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide
Supplement 3: Press and Other Public Responses to the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, June 1982
Supplement 4: “Their Holocaust,” Amos Elon, Haaretz, June 11, 1982
Chapter 2: The Conference Really Did Take Place and Very Meaningfully
Supplement: Letters Confronting Prime Minister Shimon Peres who Opposed the Conference, and in Later Years Continued Opposition to Recognizing the Armenian Genocide
Chapter 3: What was Elie Wiesel’s Real Position about the Armenians and about Addressing the Genocides of Many Non-Jewish Peoples Alongside the Holocaust?
Supplement: Gallery of Correspondence with Elie Wiesel
Chapter 4: Critique: How Should We Have Handled the Threats to Jewish Lives?
Chapter 5: Israel’s Tragically Immoral Denials of, and indifference to, the Genocides of Other Peoples
Chapter 6: Israel’s Denial-Concealment of the Cruelty, Genocidal Expulsions, and Massacres of Arabs in the Nonetheless Entirely Just War of Independence: A Striking Chapter of the Universal Challenge to All Peoples to Respect and Protect Life
Three Contemporary Updates: The Voices of a Distinguished Contemporary Turk, an Armenian, and a Jew
Chapter 7: A Contemporary Turk: Ragip Zarakolu—The Banality of Denial
Chapter 8: A Contemporary Armenian: Richard G. Hovannisian: The Armenian Genocide and Extreme Denial
Chapter 9: A Contemporary Jew: Michael Berenbaum—The Armenian Genocide, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Israel
Chapter 10: Israel’s Continuing Denial of the Armenian Genocide
Raphael Ahren, “Why Israel Still Refuses to Recognize a Century-Old Genocide,” Times of Israel, April 24, 2015
Israel Charny with Yair Auron, “If Not Now, When Will Israel Recognize the Armenian Genocide?,” California Courier January 9, 2020
Supplementary Chapter 11: Marc I. Sherman: Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem—Highlights of the Story of the First Institute on Genocide in the World
Afterword
Standing Up for Truth and Justice against Excessive Power
Acknowledgments and Heartfelt Thanks
About the Author
Index
TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SOVEREIGN NATIONS AND GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
Samuel Totten
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
- Gallery
- Description
By Israel W. Charny
When the Turkish government demanded the cancellation of all lectures on the Armenian Genocide at Israel's First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and that Armenian lecturers not be allowed to participate, the Israeli government followed suit. This book follows the author’s gutsy campaign against his government and his quest to successfully hold the conference in the face of censorship. A political whodunit based on previously secret Israel Foreign Ministry cables, this book investigates Israel’s overall tragically unjust relationship to genocides of other peoples.
The book also closely examines the figures of Elie Wiesel and Shimon Peres in their interference with the recognition of other peoples’ genocidal tragedies, particularly the Armenian Genocide. Additional chapters by three prominent leaders—a fearless Turk who has paid a huge price in Turkish jails (Ragip Zarakolu), a renowned Armenian American who was one of the earliest writers on the Armenian Genocide (Richard Hovannisian); and a Jew, who was responsible for the selection of all the materials in the pathbreaking U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington (Michael Berenbaum)—provide added perspectives.
Praise:
“Israel Charny has single-handedly produced at least half of the seminal ideas in the history of genocide studies and genocide prevention. I wish there were a Nobel Prize in Genocide Studies. If there were, he should get the first one.”
“Israel Charny has brilliantly captured over a hundred years of evasions and denials by the Turkish Government for the genocide that extinguished the lives of a million and a half Armenian souls. Armenians also lost a thousand years of their culture. This monumental crime against the Armenian nation must be recognized. To do less calls into question the integrity of all those victims of similar crimes, regardless of origin. It is ironic that the person who coined the word ‘genocide’ in 1944, Rafael Lemkin, was himself of Jewish faith, and the State of Israel should have been the first nation to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and I am sure things since then would have been different in the world. I heartily congratulate Charny for deftly exposing the many contradictions in our world towards our nation’s Genocide, and pray that this book will serve the purpose to wake up Israeli politicians.”
“Israel Charny is one of those indefatigable scholars—Jonathan Swift is another—whose fierce indignation is necessary to our age and who fight the most necessary battles at the right moment. Charny’s latest work proclaims that every genocide is unique but that none has the right to claim unique suffering, and that denial is the final stage of genocide. He thus speaks to the future as well as the past. He holds his own Israeli government to account for its failure to acknowledge the 1915 Armenian mass murders as genocide. He even proves that the Israeli authorities invented threats to the Jewish community in Turkey in 1982 in a vain attempt to curtail a Jerusalem Holocaust and genocide conference he helped to arrange—and thus curtail all discussion on the Armenian genocide. At the same time, he makes no cheap shots—he admires Israel even when he undermines its outrageous denial.”
“The book you are holding is a must-read. Here are a Turk, Armenian, and Jew coming together to deliver an intensely poignant and meaningful message to us all: those who deny the reality of a genocide perpetrated upon others largely lose their credibility when speaking of genocides perpetrated against themselves. These documents show us how those who deny the Armenian genocide on the pretext of national security are indirectly admitting their own capability to carry out precisely such a crime themselves.”
Table of Contents
Preface
One is Either for Human Life or Not
Foreword
Who Really Lied? The Turks, Armenians, and Jews Revisited
Yair Auron
Introduction
Summary: The “Good Guys” (Israel) Turn Out to be the Bigger Liars
Chapter 1: The First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide in June 1982 in Tel Aviv Was a Milestone Event on Many Levels
Supplement 1: Program of Conference—How does One Summarize the Learning that Took Place at the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide?
Supplement 2: Responses of Participants in the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide
Supplement 3: Press and Other Public Responses to the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, June 1982
Supplement 4: “Their Holocaust,” Amos Elon, Haaretz, June 11, 1982
Chapter 2: The Conference Really Did Take Place and Very Meaningfully
Supplement: Letters Confronting Prime Minister Shimon Peres who Opposed the Conference, and in Later Years Continued Opposition to Recognizing the Armenian Genocide
Chapter 3: What was Elie Wiesel’s Real Position about the Armenians and about Addressing the Genocides of Many Non-Jewish Peoples Alongside the Holocaust?
Supplement: Gallery of Correspondence with Elie Wiesel
Chapter 4: Critique: How Should We Have Handled the Threats to Jewish Lives?
Chapter 5: Israel’s Tragically Immoral Denials of, and indifference to, the Genocides of Other Peoples
Chapter 6: Israel’s Denial-Concealment of the Cruelty, Genocidal Expulsions, and Massacres of Arabs in the Nonetheless Entirely Just War of Independence: A Striking Chapter of the Universal Challenge to All Peoples to Respect and Protect Life
Three Contemporary Updates: The Voices of a Distinguished Contemporary Turk, an Armenian, and a Jew
Chapter 7: A Contemporary Turk: Ragip Zarakolu—The Banality of Denial
Chapter 8: A Contemporary Armenian: Richard G. Hovannisian: The Armenian Genocide and Extreme Denial
Chapter 9: A Contemporary Jew: Michael Berenbaum—The Armenian Genocide, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Israel
Chapter 10: Israel’s Continuing Denial of the Armenian Genocide
Raphael Ahren, “Why Israel Still Refuses to Recognize a Century-Old Genocide,” Times of Israel, April 24, 2015
Israel Charny with Yair Auron, “If Not Now, When Will Israel Recognize the Armenian Genocide?,” California Courier January 9, 2020
Supplementary Chapter 11: Marc I. Sherman: Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem—Highlights of the Story of the First Institute on Genocide in the World
Afterword
Standing Up for Truth and Justice against Excessive Power
Acknowledgments and Heartfelt Thanks
About the Author
Index
TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SOVEREIGN NATIONS AND GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
Samuel Totten
Publisher: Academic Studies Press