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Professor Benny Morris, one of the foremost historians of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has ventured into a new territory. He discusses his forthcoming book that analyzes the Ottoman Empire’s policy towards its minorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the 1915 Armenian Genocide as its brutal culmination.
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This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel. [/infobox]
Thank you for making this interview with professor Benny Morris available on the internet. I listened with great interest and am happy that a new book will be published on this subject. I have always maintained that the genocide of Armenians and other Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire did not happen in a vacuum and not just in 1915-1916. The modus operandi of getting rid of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in the Empire was handed over, or “inherited”, from the Sultan down to the Young Turk revolutionaries and then to Kemal Ataturk. I am glad that the professor has focused on this aspect of the conflict.
As a son of a survivor of the Armenian Genocide this issue has had a direct impact on our family. A dispassionate work on this subject by a prominent scholar such as Mr. Morris will help shed light on this issue and contribute to furthering the education of students of history.
Mr Morris: you claim “unlike the Holocaust where the government was doing the killing, in the case of Armenians and Turks it was neighbor vs neighbor”. Absolutely wrong. And that actually makes me suspicious with what your intent is here. Are you trying to absolve the Turkish government of their crimes Mr Morris? Or perhaps you have some more research to do before continuing the publication of your books?
The government of the Turks was the reason of the Armenian Holocaust, not “neighbors”. Regardless of who did the killing, the government 1. Created the movement and 2. Incited the murders. Both the Turkish government and the civilians engaged in murdering Armenians, especially the Kurds, who were promised all the lands and wealth of the Armenians if they got rid of them. Just because the government was not involved in every actual murder – it means nothing, and I don’t appreciate you trying to suggest otherwise.
Also, Turkey has not really changed much from that time until today. Just like they did during WWI where they let loose all the criminal murderers from jail and instructed them to go kill Armenians, except today they did it against Syrians.
Hagop,
Listening to the interview with Professor Morris, he clearly implicates three successive Turkish governments as the masterminds of genocidal intent. While Ottoman and Turkish soldiers were involved with some of the killing, he is correct in stating that much of the killing was done by Moslem neighbors. The actual killing of my family members is well documented in the history books. It was instigated by a Circassian governor, a physician, who was in direct contact with Talaat through telegraph messages and implemented by a Kurdish member of the Committee of Union and Progress, who recruited fellow Kurds to do the killing. Please do not direct such a Pavlovian response to the work of this righteous Jewish scholar.