[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       A TRAGEDY OFFSTAGE NO MORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last month a landmark decision was 
announced, marking an important recognition of one of the most horrible 
crimes against humanity of the 20th century, the Armenian Genocide. 
What was particularly important was that the action came from the State 
of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people who were victims of the 
Nazi Holocaust.
  Israel's education minister, Yossi Sarid, made the historic decision 
to include the Armenian Genocide in the national curriculum. Mr. Sarid 
announced his decision on April 24, the traditional day of 
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, at a ceremony in the Armenian 
Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Expressing regret that Israeli 
students know very little of the genocide that began in 1915, in which 
some 1.5 million Armenians, one-third of the Armenian people, were 
killed by Turkish forces, Mr. Sarid said, ``I will do everything so 
that Israeli pupils will study and learn about the Armenian Genocide.''
  Mr. Speaker, the issue of Israeli recognition of the Armenian 
Genocide received extensive coverage in an article that appeared in the 
May 12, 2000, Internet edition of the Jerusalem Post titled ``A Tragedy 
Offstage No More,'' by Leora Eren Frucht.
  As the article noted, ``When Hitler ordered his death units to 
`exterminate without mercy or pity, men, women and children belonging 
to the Polish-speaking race,' he was confident that the world would 
overlook the mass murder. `After all,' he asked rhetorically on the eve 
of the 1939 invasion of Poland, `who remembers the extermination of the 
Armenians?' '' By the time that the Nazis were finally stopped 6 years 
later, 6 million European Jews had been murdered, as well as millions 
of other innocent victims of other nationalities.
  Mr. Speaker, the Armenian and Jewish peoples are united in a common 
bond of suffering and in the struggle to overcome the tragedies of the 
past. While they were being massacred in unthinkable numbers, Armenians 
in the Ottoman Turkish Empire during World War I and European Jews 
during World War II, most of the rest of the world was looking the 
other way, although many knew what was happening.
  After the Holocaust, the Jewish people built the State of Israel into 
a prosperous democracy, despite being surrounded by hostile neighbors. 
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Armenian people 
have worked to build democracy and economic reform in the Republic of 
Armenian, despite being surrounded by hostile neighbors.
  One of the hostile neighbors who has threatened Armenia since its 
independence a decade ago is Turkey. It was, of course, in the 
territory of the present-day Republic of Turkey and in the name of 
Turkish nationalism that the genocide against the Armenians took place 
during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Yet Turkey continues its 
unconscionable official policy of denying that the genocide ever took 
place. In today's world, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, 
continues to blockade its much smaller and more vulnerable neighbor, 
Armenia, despite Armenia's standing offer to normalize relations 
without preconditions.
  In the aforementioned Jerusalem Post article, Turkey's official 
policy of denial was described as ``outrageous'' by Deborah Lipstadt, 
the American historian who defeated Holocaust denier David Irving in a 
highly publicized libel trial in London court last month. Professor 
Yehuda Bauer, academic director of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust 
memorial, stated, ``If you accept the U.N. 1948 definition of genocide, 
which we and many other nations have done, then there can be no 
argument about calling this a genocide,'' referring to Armenia.
  Yet the decision by Israel's education minister was a difficult one. 
Israel has been working to steadily improve its relations with Turkey 
at the same time that Israel works to improve relations with Armenia. 
Mr. Sarid's decision on including the Armenian Genocide in the Israeli 
curriculum prompted an outcry in Turkey that included a protest to 
Israel's charge d'affaires in Ankara.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Turkey frequently has shown its willingness to 
play hardball to intimidate other nations into not recognizing the 
Armenian Genocide. When the National Assembly in France adopted a bill 
in 1998 to acknowledge the genocide, Turkey promptly suspended the 
signing of a $145 million defense contract.

                              {time}  2015

  Thus, Mr. Speaker, considering Israel's vulnerable position in the 
Middle East and its need to cultivate relations with Muslim nations, 
the action by Education Minister Sarid was a true profile in courage, a 
real statement of principle.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to cite a letter dated May 22, 2000 
that the Armenian Assembly of America has received from Israeli 
Education Minister Yossi Sarid, and I quote, ``I fully intend to allow 
Israeli pupils to learn the lessons of your tragedy, which is ours and 
the world's, as well. Israelis are the last people who can afford to 
forget the tragedies of this magnitude.''

                          ____________________