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Correction

Reader comment on item: More on Turkish Support for ISIS
in response to reader comment: BS Armenian "genocide"

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Nov 9, 2014 at 00:38

BTW, dhimmi no more,

I looked deeper into the definition of "genocide", and found the following:
Etymology[edit]

Raphael Lemkin, in his work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), coined the term "genocide" by combining Greek genos (γένος), "race, people" and Latin cīdere "to kill".[1]

Lemkin defined genocide as follows:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

The preamble to the Genocide Convention ("CPPCG") notes that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history,[2] but it was not until Lemkin coined the term and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg trials that the United Nations defined the crime of genocide under international law in the Genocide Convention.

During an interview with Lemkin, the interviewer asked him about how he came to be interested in this genocide. He replied: "I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times. It happened to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action."[3][4]

Lemkin was also a close relative of genocide victims, losing 49 relatives in the Holocaust. However, his work on defining genocide as a crime dates to 1933, and it was prompted by the Simele massacre in Iraq.[5]

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

You are justified, therefore, in applying the term to the Armenians, seeing that the one who coined the word was of this opinion. As I said, however, the European Court does not have this opinion:

"Genocide is a very narrowly defined legal notion which is difficult to prove," the court said.

"Mr Perincek was making a speech of a historical, legal and political nature in a contradictory debate."

The court drew a distinction between the Armenian case and appeals it has rejected against convictions for denying the Nazi German Holocaust against the Jews during World War Two.

"In those cases, the plaintiffs had denied sometimes very concrete historical facts such as the existence of gas chambers," the court said. "They denied crimes committed by the Nazi regime that had a clear legal basis. Furthermore, the facts they denied had been clearly been established by an international tribunal."

-- http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/17/us-switzerland-turkey-genocide-idUSBRE9BG11J20131217

My objection is to the runaway use of the term "genocide", in general; because the original UN definition was, in fact, derived from the Nuremburg Trials against people who practiced genocide, in its narrowest sense, against the Jews during World War II. There has been a concerted effort lately, specifically to cast the Jewish people of Israel as culpable of such a crime -- a gross and detestable semantic infiltration.

The Armenians are not innocent in this infiltration: It is common for Armenians today to accuse the Jews of "complicity in genocide", simply because they have not come up with an official condemnation of the Armenian massacres. To this, I respond that the Armenians, as a constituent state of the Soviet Union, participated in Hitler's genocide against the Jews, cutting off the escape of Jews fleeing from the Nazi attack on Poland and sending those who did cross over into Russian-occupied territory to Siberia. My cousins were among those so exiled. As Soviets, the Armenians also were complicit in other atrocities that have been labeled "genocides" by some.

What you are doing, it seems, is drawing upon an incident that happened 100 years ago, using a definition that has been around merely 70 years, in order to obliquely accuse the Jews of crimes that they themselves were victims of.

Submitting....

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