Includes link to article in Hebrew  by Uriel Levy in Davar Rishon, 25.1.2019, “לא לעמוד מנגד” – Do Not Be a Bystander and a discussion of the new U.S. law, Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act (see also the post on this law on this website).

The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, under the direction of Professors Israel Charny and Yair Auron submitted proposals for Op-Eds to be published in the Haaretz Hebrew Edition and in the Haaretz English Edition and the Jerusalem Post, but all of these submissions went unanswered.  (In the interest of self-disclosure, it is only fair to add that as we return to the text of our submissions in English we find in our computer files that one paragraph came through as gibberish and could have spoiled it all.)

Along with the (non-gibberish) text of the Op-Ed to the English newspapers (see below), we are also mounting an excellent article in Hebrew by Uriel Levy of the Combat Genocide movement in Israel about the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST, January 27 (Levy’s article was published in the Hebrew weekly, Davar Rishon, updated January 25, 2019). Click here to read full text.

Levy emphasizes and celebrates the larger meaning of memorial of the Holocaust of the Jewish people as an “actual commandment” to all peoples everywhere, “Never Again.”  He reviews the “devastating historical chronicle” of one event of genocide after another in our world since the Holocaust, including Biafra, Burundi, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, and more, and calls on all of us and our world as a whole to take notice and to take action to stop genocide.

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To the Editor

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION OF VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE AND OF ITS PREVENTION

December 9 is a day proclaimed by the United Nations as a memorial to all the victims of genocide of all peoples:

December 9 is the day that in 1945 the United Nations passed the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Moreover, it is interesting to note that the proposal for this memorial day was introduced by Armenia. The Armenian people were the greatest victim of genocide in the 20th century before our Holocaust, and to many researchers, the Armenian Genocide paved the way for the Holocaust. It should also be noted that Armenia passed this decision after it managed to enact such a memorial day for all the victims of genocide in the world in the Armenian calendar.

To the best of our knowledge, until now, in the first years since the proclamation of the UN international day of commemoration of all victims in 2015, the State of Israel has not participated in any meaningful way.

It seems to us that it is appropriate to participate actively in this memorial, beginning with the Jewish tradition that places so much emphasis on the value of life of every created being, and as a further expression of our ‘special role’ as a chosen people for suffering, and of course based on our understanding of the grim lessons of our own Holocaust.

We, Jews and citizens of the State of Israel, wholeheartedly applaud Armenia for the initiative.

We extend through the media in Israel a declaration congratulating Armenia on its initiative to enact an International Day of Remembrance for all the victims of genocide worldwide.

At the same time, we note that we call upon the State of Israel to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide that claimed the lives of 1.5 million Armenians and a similar number of Assyrians, Yazidis, Greeks, and others.

During the Armenian Genocide period, members of NILI, an organization devoted to pursuing the Zionist goal when Palestine was still part of the Ottoman Empire, warned the Yishuv (that of course was under Turkish control) that a similar fate could and probably awaited the Jews. And indeed few people know or remember there were two actual periods of expulsion of Jews by the Turks in Palestine and the deaths of several thousand of them under the stresses of the expulsions. Sara Aharonson of Nili, who was later hung by the Turks, was a direct witness to the murder of the Armenians in Turkey, and among other things she described trains loaded with people and bodies that had been discarded and replaced by other Armenians.

Needless to add, beyond any practical political considerations, we are deeply ashamed of a Holocaust-stricken people for not recognizing the factual nature of the Armenian Genocide. Moreover, the attempt to legislate recently in the Knesset to recognition of the recent genocide of the Yazidi people (and there are reports that this genocide continues to this day) was rejected as if it were out of lack of interest and not from any consideration of realpolitik.

When all is said and done, we Israelis-Jews are earning for ourselves an identity as leading deniers of genocides.

Sincerely,

Prof. Israel Charny and Prof. Yair Auron

Chairmen of the Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Genocide, Jerusalem     engygeno@gmail.com

It should be noted that we were both awarded the Armenia Prize and the Gold Medal from the President of Armenia for our contributions to international recognition of the Armenian Genocide