From the Jewish Grassroots

A lead editorial in the Wednesday, February 28 edition of The Jewish Press condemns the efforts by the Turkish government to enlist Jewish organizations in a bid to prevent the passage of House Resolution 106, which would officially recognize the Armenian Genocide:

We are certainly not insensitive to the significance of Turkey’s support of Israel. But the Turkish government’s attempt to capitalize on that support by pressing the American Jewish community to oppose a Congressional resolution that condemns as “genocide” Turkey’s murder of a million and a half Armenians during World War I strikes us as being the height of chutzpah.

The editorial refers specifically to the February 5 meeting of Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül with several American Jewish organizations, where Gül solicited their support in blocking passage fo the resolution (see my previous post).

The Jewish Press's implicit support for House Resolution 106 is very significant. The weekly has a circulation of at least 95,000. Its orientation is generally right-wing, and most of its readers identify as "Modern Orthodox." The paper's editorial line is unequivocal about its support for the State of Israel, and many of its readers identify with religious Zionism; in the past, one could be sure that they would support the Likud or parties to the right of it. It would certainly be hard to accuse them of not having the national security and strategic interests of Israel in mind. Having said all this, the paper's editorials frequently provoke controversy in the religious Jewish community in New York and elsewhere. Its columns are often widely discussed.

While the Jewish Press editorial argues that "opposition to House Resolution 106 does not necessarily signify lack of sympathy with the victims, or, indeed, sentiment against the concept itself," the board is unequivocal about its own position on the genocide:

Anyone who seriously and objectively considers those events cannot but conclude that there was a calculated and purposeful effort to exterminate the Armenians. After all, approximately 1.5 million perished.

The Jewish Press especially condemned Foreign Minister Gül for using the argument of the Shoah's uniqueness to make the case that Jews should quash an Armenian Genocide resolution:

The Turkish official reportedly appealed to the participants by noting – outrageously, we think – the uniqueness of the German genocide against the Jews.

It concludes that

acknowledging as genocide the systematic murder of a million and a half human beings of a particular ethnic heritage in no way detracts from recognition of the Holocaust as a uniquely monumental evil in the blood-soaked annals of human history.