Turkey Blames the Jews the Passage of Genocide Bill in Congress

Yigal Schleifer
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

ISTANBUL

When a U.S. congressional committee approved a resolution recognizing the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide, Turkey's reaction was swift, harsh and, sadly, not unusual: Blame the Jews!

In an interview with the liberal Islamic Zaman newspaper on the eve of the resolution's approval Oct. 10 by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said he told American Jewish leaders that a genocide bill would strengthen the public perception in Turkey that "Armenian and Jewish lobbies unite forces against Turks."

He added: "We have told them that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is pointing his finger at U.S. Jews for a congressional resolution on Armenian genocide.

The Turkish public seems to have absorbed that message.

An online survey by Zaman's English-language edition asking why Turks believed the bill succeeded showed that 22 percent of respondents had chosen "Jews' having legitimized the genocide claims" -- second only to "Turkey's negligence."

U.S. Jewish community leaders reject that argument, and privately say that Ankara has only itself to blame for its failure to muster the support necessary to derail passage of the Armenian genocide resolution, which in Turkey is seen as anti-Turkish.

Resentment lingers in Washington over the Turkish Parliament's failure to approve a March 2003 motion to allow U.S. troops to use Turkish soil as a staging ground for an invasion of Iraq.

And an official visit to Ankara in early 2006 by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal upset many of Israel's supporters on Capitol Hill, who have been among Turkey's most vocal proponents as part of a strategy of developing strong ties between Turkey and Israel.

Soner Cagaptay, coordinator of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says all this factors into it: "The lingering effects of 2003 resonate. Some people are still angry with Turkey."

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the Jews should not be blamed for the Armenia genocide bill.

"We regret that some officials there are trying to lay the onus of what's happened on the Jewish community," said Hoenlein. "They shouldn't allow some people to manipulate this initiative in Congress to the detriment of this relationship, which is beneficial for both sides."

Observers in Turkey say that the public perception of the Jews' outsized role in the resolution's passage is based on an element of fact mixed with a greater amount of fiction.

A Major Blow
In August, the Anti-Defamation League, facing pressure from grass-roots activists, reversed its long-held policy of not recognizing the Armenian genocide when ADL national director Abraham Foxman declared that what happened to the Armenians was "indeed tantamount to genocide."

But Foxman maintained the ADL's position opposing a congressional resolution on the matter, as it would strain U.S.-Turkey ties, and jeopardize ties between Israel and Turkey, Israel's main Middle Eastern ally.

Nevertheless, in Turkey the ADL's reversal was seen as a major blow to the country's public-relations campaign against Armenian efforts to get a genocide resolution passed in Washington.

"Obviously, the ADL's switch was not good news," said Suat Kiniklioglu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party and spokesman for the Turkish Parliament's foreign-affairs committee.

Mustafa Akyol, an Istanbul-based political commentator explains that the strong reaction to the ADL's policy switch and the perception that it somehow legitimized the Armenians' claims are based on an "inflated sense" of U.S. Jewish power among the Turkish public. "There is a belief that [the resolution] couldn't have happened without Jewish support," he said.

The House bill passed the committee by a 27-21 vote, with seven of the committee's eight Jewish members voting in favor of Resolution 106. The full House of Representatives has yet to vote on the resolution.

Yet despite the vote, U.S. Jewish groups said that they lobbied against the bill -- just as they have done in the past.

"Behind-the-scenes support [from U.S. Jewish groups] has been quite powerful" in persuading congressmen to oppose the bill, said the Washington Institute's Cagaptay. That may help prevent it from being brought to a vote in the full House.

Turkish-Jewish leaders published a full-page ad in the Washington Times on the day of the vote voicing their opposition to the bill. Historically, Jews both in Turkey and the United States have been strong opponents of a congressional resolution on Armenian genocide. Jews consider their support for Turkey's positions on the bill and other issues on Capitol Hill key to maintaining strong ties between Turkey and Israel.