How Israel Quashed Efforts to Recognize the Armenian Genocide

 Ofer Aderet

In the summer of 1982, Israel's Foreign Ministry set to work on a special mission. “We continue to spare no effort on this issue, which is currently a central one on our agenda,” an internal ministry document says of the mission. “We shall leave no stone unturned, whether or not this thing succeeds,” another document says. “Intensive treatment that encompasses both institutions and public figures in Israel and abroad… feverish and tireless efforts… at the highest diplomatic levels,” other documents add.

The mission that so occupied the Foreign Ministry personnel 40 years ago had nothing to do with the First Lebanon War, which had just begun, but with another much larger and deadlier war: the Armenian genocide in 1915, during which an estimated 1.5 million people were killed by the forces of the Ottoman Empire.

Knesset Doesn’t Shy Away from Armenian Genocide after Turkey Deal: Discussion, But Not Recognition

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and other members of the Parliament called for the Israeli government to recognize the Armenian Genocide on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, despite recently signing an agreement improving relations with Turkey.

“We cannot ignore, dwarf or deny this terrible genocide,” Edelstein stated. “We must disconnect current interests of this time and place from the difficult past.”

Un nombre bajo los talones, o lo sublime y lo banal

 Hagop Gulludjián

Sobremesa de una cena en la cocina. Habla sentado en una silla de madera. Las noticias de la televisión en francés interceptan parcialmente sus frases, pero no quiere silenciar el aparato ubicado justo detrás de él. No quiere hablar solo; quizás le teme a su propia voz.
Tiene noventa años, pero es un hombre que sube los ciento cincuenta escalones de Montmartre todas las mañanas con vigor juvenil. Enfrente está una pareja que ha viajado diez mil kilómetros para verlo. Aunque los separan poco menos de seis décadas, uno de ellos es el sobrino. El testigo le habla a la mujer de este último, a quien ni siquiera acerca su mirada.