Armenian dress rehearsal

The news and anticipation that relationships between Israel and Armenia are developing constructively is good news indeed (“Are Israeli-Armenian Relations Warming Up,” January 9), if only because the Armenian people are our true brothers in suffering major genocides in the 20th century. As the Armenian Genocide is considered by many scholars to have been a “dress rehearsal” for our Holocaust, there should be respectful and helpful relationships between the two peoples and their countries.

Dr. Chen Bram, the research fellow at Truman Institute, is so right when he calls for Israel’s foreign policy to be both value-based and in response to the realities of realpolitik. Even if Azerbaijan is an important ally for us, we should never put off recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

A correction to one major error in the valuable article: the expulsion and genocide of the Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915 was not in response to Armenians favoring the Russians in their war against the Ottomans. In fact, the Armenian Genocide really began in 1895 with the murder of 200,000 Armenians by the Ottomans – a fact that tells you that the subsequent continuation of the genocide sprang from demands for the exclusivity of pan-Turkism. Does the demand for exclusivity sound familiar?

PROF. ISRAEL CHARNY

Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide Jerusalem