Biden recognizing Armenian Genocide is righting a historic wrong, Emily Schrader writes in an opinion piece for The Jerusalem Post.
According to the author, the Biden administration recognizing the Armenian Genocide would not only send a morally necessary message to the people of Armenia on behalf of the United States, it also would send a message to the world. “The time for recognition is now.”
“It absolutely unconscionable that the community of nations has continued to allow Turkey to use its geopolitical position to bully other nations into denying or refusing to recognize the Armenian Genocide. For decades, Turkey has actively censored those who recognize the genocide in Turkey itself, and has even destroyed evidence. Previously, it even imprisoned academics who dared to call the Armenian Genocide a genocide,” she writes.
According to her, “if even a few of the world’s superpowers had recognized the Armenian Genocide from day one, we would be living in a different reality today, where smaller nations wouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge the obvious historical fact to the detriment of a people that was almost eliminated.”
“For decades, Turkey has blackmailed and threatened nations if they even considered recognizing the Armenian Genocide,” Emily Schrader writes, noting that initially, this wasn’t something Israel could politically afford.
“Israel relied heavily on Turkey as one of the only Muslim states with which it had cooperation and diplomatic relations. Yet through the decades, Turkey has become increasingly hostile to Israel with the dictatorial and Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Not only that, Turkey is increasingly aligned geopolitically with Iran,” the author continued.
She noted, however, that today, Israel is less dependent than ever on Turkey, especially with emerging relations with Arab states. “Yet instead of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and unequivocally standing on the right side of history, the Israeli government has sold out the Armenian people even today, by selling weapons to Azerbaijan while it bombs Armenian cities.”
