The Turkish Daily News reports that Ankara is "baffled by [Democratic Congressman Tom] Lantos's vote" to approve the Armenian genocide resolution for a floor vote in the House. The source of the confusion? According to the newspaper's unnamed Washington sources, "Israel had been lobbying against the resolution's passage." Since the longtime House representative and chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs "is one of Israel's strongest supporters in Washington," he was, so the logic goes, expected to vote against the resolution. Ankara has continued to warn American Jewish groups that their support for recognition would damage Turkey's relationship with Israel.
Brian Ardouny of the Armenian Assembly of America expressed his gratitude to the House Foreign Affairs Committee for supporting the resolution in the face of pressure from the White House.
Aram Hamparian of the Armenian National Committee of America called the adoption of the resolution by the House Committee a "meaningful step toward reclaiming our right, as Americans, to speak openly and honestly about the first genocide of the 20th century."
At the risk of sounding pedantic: the Armenian Genocide was not the "first genocide" of the 20th century. This statement is unfortunately repeated unthinkingly by many people working toward the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. I don't really understand why it is necessary to claim any sort of primacy (does it make the tragedy worse?), but if one is going to do so, there is at least one earlier case - the genocide of the Herero and Nama in South-West Africa by German colonial troops between 1904 and 1907.
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The reason Turkey is "baffled" at Lantos' vote is because for years he was part of the Turkish Caucus and always voted in favor of Turkey. Then he got angry because Turkey did not allow passage of US soldiers through Turkey at the beginning of the Iraq war. Turkish constituents were in touch with Lantos' office & his aide kept saying "Lantos is not a child and would not act like his toy is taken away", however, he unfortunately did exactly that!
In reality, since this issue is being used for politics only, it went to the highest bidder, in this case the Armenians, since they paid much more to their congressmen's campaign. Just look who voted yes, all are representatives from areas where the Armenian population is in big numbers. They have an obligation towards their constituents who paid big bucks and have to live up to their promises, not because they care what happened between countries, which most can't even point out on the map, a century ago.
Oh sure, Anonymous. "The Armenians" bribed American Congressmen to vote for recognition. Sorry, your analysis doesn't quite work when you look at the 200+ House representatives who have expressed support for the resolution.
As for Lantos: even if what you said were true, are the motives that you attribute to him and to pro-recognition House representatives any less base than those of the White House and large sections of the State Department, who deny the genocide for geopolitical reasons?
Anyway, do you really think that Lantos was motivated solely by a desire to punish Turkey for not helping the US in the Iraq campaign? Seems like a very convenient way of reading the situation.
By the way, "what happened" (genocide) was not "between countries" but between a state and its own civilian population. And actually, it seems that enough members of the American public do care about that.
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