BY IHSAN AKTAŞ
APR 27, 2024 – 12:05 AM GMT+3
It would be more beneficial for Armenia to move beyond the events of over a century ago and adopt a forward-looking approach focused on the well-being of the Armenian people
It is widely recognized that World War I and II brought immense suffering to humanity. While World War II brought about even greater devastation than the first, the measures implemented in its aftermath may have effectively safeguarded Western states from internal conflicts. But today, Zionists are committing the same genocide against Muslims as Adolf Hitler did against Jews.
The World Wars were full of examinations for all nations. Millions of people lost their lives in the war between Western states, primarily in Russia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the Balkans and the deserts of Arabia.
Reportedly, 250,000 Ottoman soldiers met their martyrdom solely on the Çanakkale front. Outside of conventional warfare in the Balkans, the number of Muslims killed by Bulgarian gangs is estimated to be 1 million.
Ironically, during World War I, Germany and Türkiye jointly decided to implement measures against the Armenians, including deportation. Indeed, the fact that the Chief of General Staff of the Ottoman state at that time was a German general underscores the substantial role played by Germany as decision-makers, leaders and administrators during the conflict.
Over the years, there has been a strange debate in the German parliament. They are also trying to claim genocide regarding the deportation of Armenians that they decided and planned at executive levels, including as the Chief of General Staff.
All nations confront their history, problems or losses. However, the Ottoman Empire, since it comes from an imperial culture, does not highlight its weaknesses and talks constantly about the millions it lost.
Armenia was different from all other states; they had no other stories in their history to create a national identity.
There is a renowned war painting of Armenians. This painting is famous in Iran and Europe as well. This historical narrative recounts the Armenians’ failed uprising against the Persians, ultimately resulting in its suppression. And they see even this defeat as a significant beginning to create their own identity.
During our visit to Armenia with the Eastern Conference group in 2004, we were struck by the somber atmosphere prevailing in the country. Despite many decades having passed since World War I and II and the onset of the Millennium Age, Armenia remains haunted by a singular issue: deportation, exile or “genocide.”
Some decades ago, Armenia forged peace with Azerbaijan and sought integration into the global community. Some politicians advocated for opening the border with Türkiye to alleviate Armenia’s economic burdens. However, radical nationalist factions silenced these voices, effectively removing them from the political arena.
Amid the delicate interplay between political realities, public relations and historical trauma, while the United States and President Joe Biden employed the term “genocide” about the Armenian issue, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan adopted a pragmatic stance, asserting, “We must now transcend the trauma of this genocide and focus on the future.” Such a stance negotiates through intricate political landscapes loaded with tough challenges.
During epochs of European dominance, discussions often revolved around concerns such as, “Armenians will make the ‘genocide’ globally recognized, demand land and claim regional rights.”
Interstate relations are primarily shaped by the dynamics of power. In other words, it is clear that even the most powerful state in the world today, let alone Armenia, cannot impose such demands on Türkiye.
In today’s world, Türkiye has emerged as a significant regional power, with its military standing among the foremost globally. Over time, our armed forces have maintained their strength and evolved into the world’s most proficient in hybrid warfare, propelled by groundbreaking technological advancements in the defense industry. Any claims to the contrary lack factual basis.
Hence, I believe it would be more beneficial for Armenia to move beyond the events of over a century ago and adopt a forward-looking approach focused on the well-being of the Armenian people. Individuals in the region must orient themselves toward the future.
There is another changing balance in the world. The Armenian diaspora in the U.S. no longer has the power to influence Armenia economically. During periods of extraordinary poverty within their country, the diaspora abroad often played an active role. But in our age, this is no longer an economic reality. Pashinyan’s statement likely stems from his conviction that the financial influence of the diaspora alone is insufficient to sustain a nation’s viability.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
İhsan Aktaş is Chairman of the Board of GENAR Research Company. He is an academic at the Department of Communication at Istanbul Medipol University.
SHORTLINK COPIED
KEYWORDS
ARMENIA GENOCIDE CLAIMS NIKOL PASHINYAN TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS
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What is the Armenian Genocide?
25.04.2015
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the genocide. Over a century of denial about the events which took place. History can never be revised to suit the needs of some.
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A Recent Anti-Semitic Theme: The Sabbatean Role in the Armenian Genocide
December 7, 2009 Guest Contributor Culture, Special Reports 63 – Excerpt
By Rifat Bali
We publish below chapter IX of Rifat Bali’s book A Scapegoat for All Seasons: The Doenmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey in its entirety.
Rifat Bali was born in Istanbul in 1948. Between the years 1970-1995 he worked first as a manager then as a managing partner in a private company. In 2001 he graduated from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes of the Sorbonne University. Since 1996 he has been researching and publishing in the field of non-Muslim minorities of Turkey, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, the social and cultural transformation of the Turkish society and Doenmes (Crypto Jews). He is a research fellow of the Alberto Benveniste Center for Sephardic Studies and Culture based in the Religious Studies Department of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne (Paris) and a member of Ottoman-Turkish Sephardic Culture Research Center. He is fluent in English, French and Ladino. Currently he is serving libraries through his company Libra Kitapcilik ve Yayincilik with monographs and serials published in Turkey.
To obtain a copy of A Scapegoat for All Seasons: The Doenmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey, contact Libra Books at rifat.bali@gmail.com.
***
Another interesting and recent product of the anti-Dönme mindset, a worldview that sees those belonging to or descended from this group as a secret, select and extremely powerful branch of Judaism that controls Turkey, is the claim that is was not the Turks, but the Sabbateans, who both planned and implemented the 1915 Deportation resulting in the mass slaughter and death of most of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population. According to this view the idea of mass deportation and slaughter emerged because the country’s Jewish bourgeoisie wished to take control of the empire’s economic life, and, since many of the leaders of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress were of Dönme origin (e.g. Talât Pasha and Dr. Nâzım), they proposed this plan to the committee as a way of eliminating their Armenian competitors. An example is Christopher Jon Bjerkness, an amateur historian of science. A 543-page document entitled The Jewish Genocide of Armenian Christians which he posted on the internet where he claims as the title suggests, that it was the Crypto-Jews who were the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.[1] Since this opinion has been shared by a wide audience among Armenian and Turkish Islamist circles, Khatchig Mouradian, the editor of The Armenian Weekly, an American-Armenian weekly newspaper, and Dr. Nilgün Gülcan, a researcher working at the International Strategic Center Research Organisation (Ankara),[2] felt obliged to discount such claims. Mouradian in his article stated that:[3]
Having written several articles on Jewcy about the bigotry and racism of some Jews and Turks regarding the Armenians and their suffering, I now feel obliged to address one of the conspiracy theories that has been passed from generation to generation—and shared by some Armenians—for a few decades at least. It goes something like this:
The plan to exterminate the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was conceived and implemented by Jews, Zionists and Freemasons. You want proof? Several leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—that committed the genocide—were Jews converted to Islam (the Turkish term used to refer to them is Donme) and freemasons. Those who present these arguments, of course, set out several reasons that might have prompted the Jews to exterminate the Armenians, ranging from jealousy (for example, the Armenians were successful merchants, even more so than the Jews) to greater geo-political schemes sometimes involving the domination of the world. In some cases, this conspiracy theory is amalgamated with a similar theory prevalent among some Arabs that the Young Turk revolt of 1908 against the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II was also a Jewish and Freemasonic conspiracy because the sultan was vehemently opposed the settling of Jews in Palestine, while the Young Turks were allegedly more inclined to implement the Zionist designs.
While no professional historian of the Armenian genocide has taken this conspiracy theory seriously, there has unfortunately been no separate academic analysis as well to expose its origins and the reasons of its persistence, making it possible for this theory to survive on the margins of Armenian life.
A quick glance of those in Turkey who espouse this view will show that they can be classified into three main groups: a) numerous columnists from the Islamist press; b) a group of Turkish-Armenian journalists, most notably the recently assassinated[4] Editor-in-Chief of the Armenian community’s semi-official organ Agos,[5] Hrant Dink, the paper’s columnist Markar Esayan and Levon Panos Dabağyan, a writer for the Turkish nationalist paper Önce Vatan; c) Ilgaz Zorlu, a young Turk who, after ‘going public’ with an admission of his Dönme origins in the late 1990s, has been on this basis accorded widespread media attention and whose every public statement has enjoyed an extraordinary level of credibility;[6] and finally d) the Marxist Economics Professor Yalçın Küçük, whose fame has spread in recent years as a result of his numerous publications on the Sabbateans.
a. The Islamist Press
Akit Editor-in-Chief Abdurrahman Dilipak
During the fall of 2000 the Turkish press was completely preoccupied with the debate then transpiring in the U.S. House of Representatives over the House Resolution 398 “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide”. During this period Abdurrahman Dilipak, the Editor-in-Chief of the radical Islamist daily Akit wrote a column in which he raised the subject of the genocide and role of the Sabbateans in it:
Is there such a thing as Sabbateanism or isn’t there? Some say there is, others claim that there’s no such thing, while still others say that there once was, but it no longer exists.
Sabbateanism is a subject which is not written about, outlined or spoken of very often. But it’s not that there aren’t some works from which the curious can acquire some general information about the topic. For example, there are Abdurrahman Küçük’s work titled Dönmeler,[7] Galante’s work,[8] and the National Education [Ministry] and [The Presidency of] Religious Affairs’ İslâm [A]nsiklopedileri.
What is generally agreed upon [by all of these authors] is that [Sabbateanism] is a secret movement like Freemasonry, it is connected to the Jewish faith, Kabbala and its traditions, based on the Messianic claim [of Sabbatai Sevi], and, having originated in Salonica, is centered in Izmir and Salonica. It is a sect or a [dervish] order.
What we’re talking about is an unknown reality of this country.
In fact, we do not know enough about the Armenians, the Greeks, the Syriac Christians or the Yezidis either.
Now, as the debate of the claims of a[n Armenian] genocide has begin in America, the question [of the Sabbateans] has once more come to the agenda in this regard. A good researcher will easily see that the true address for claims of [responsibility for] the genocide are neither the Ottoman [Empire] nor the Republic of Turkey. The role in this affair of those Jewish, Masonic and Sabbatean Unionists within the Committee of Union and Progress is a well-known fact.
So why doesn’t anyone want to see it as a fact? The reality of it is painfully clear.[9]
Six years later, upon the French Parliament’s passage of a law outlawing the denial of the truth of the Armenian genocide, Dilipak would once again pick up this line of argument, implying, among others, Jewish and Dönme responsibility for the Armenian genocide with the statement “The Armenian question is a subject that not only concerns the Turks, the Kurds and Jews are also involved in this affair. The Sabbateans are also [involved]. So, for that matter, are the Russians, the Americans, the British, the French and the Greeks. We will [soon] understand that none of us are without blame”.[10] In 2007 the day after the House Resolution 106 entitled “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution” was accepted by The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives Dilipak referred again in his column to this matter and stated that “if we discuss in depth the Armenian problem, it would become apparent that those who did this in the Ottoman Empire were Committee of Union and Progress bands made up of Jews, Freemason-Sabataist mongrels”.[11]
Millî Gazete Columnist Mehmed Şevket Eygi
The question of the Armenian genocide and Dönme responsibility for it was also recently taken up by the columnist of the Islamist daily Millî Gazete,[12] Mehmed Şevket Eygi. In a late-2005 column Eygi wrote:
The events of 1915 were planned by the Dönme. [They were carried out] because at that time the commerce, the crafts production and capital of Anatolia were in great measure in the hands of the Armenians. The Dönmes wanted to replace them in the economic, commercial and finance-related fields.
Were some atrocities committed against the Armenians? They were, but it wasn’t the Muslim Turks who committed them. As to those who did carry out [such acts], those who are well-versed in history, who know the true nature of the[se] events, are aware [of who is responsible].
(1) The Armenian question is the concern of the Dönmes.
(2) [These actions] were performed as a reprisal for the actions carried out by the Armenian armed gangs incited by aggressive missionaries. Let it not be forgotten how, when the Russian army entered Anatolia, entered Van, some Armenians who were enemies of the very state to which they belonged carried out barbarities against the Muslim [inhabitant]s.
(3) In general, those Armenians who had been deported were killed and robbed by other, non-Turkish groups.
The columnist then concludes his piece with the following ‘note’:
I suggest that you read the article titled “GİZLİ BİR SAVAŞ: YAHUDİLER ERMENİLERE KARŞI” [‘A secret war: the Jews against the Armenians’] found at the Internet site for which I give the web address below. In this two-page article it is claimed that the planners of the Armenian events of 1915 were Dönmes, or Crypto-Jews. http://mitglied.lycos.de/goezelele53.[13]
The web article to which Eygi refers his readers was written in Turkish in 2001 and is presented below in full:
In this article of mine, I wish to explain to you some truths about the Armenian Question with the intention of at least partially removing the scales from your eyes:
I want to speak of two large minority [populations] that competed with one another within the Ottoman Empire for centuries, that is to say, the Jews and the Armenians. The disputes between these two minorities derived not from the land dispute [that, originating with] the Young Turks [and continuing] down to the establishment of the Union and Progress Party, but with the struggles between these two groups for commercial advantage. The Armenians were always much more capable artisans than the Jews and [so the latter] did not engage in commerce apart from through fraud and dubious dealing or by creating all manner of division and dissent against their competitors, because the society was not familiar with their culture. That’s how it was with the Jews, it was part of their ideology; that’s what it meant to be Jewish.
In the 1870s two branches of Judaism, the Sabbateans and the Jews,[14] began to organize among themselves and gain in strength. Through the assistance of the French, Italians and other foreign powers they began to understand the dimensions of their own united power in the economic field. They began to [work toward] destroy[ing] the [Ottoman] Empire and planting the seeds of an entirely new state that they themselves would establish. But naturally, as part of this plan they could not be on friendly terms with the Armenians, who were their biggest competitors. For this reason you cannot find Armenians among the Young Turks or the [Committee of] Union and Progress. They embarked upon preparations for the whittling down and elimination of the Armenians. What they intended to do was to eliminate the Armenians, who for centuries had established a powerful minority community within the various cities and centers of Anatolia, and to establish a state in which the control and administration would be in their own hands. This was what Sabbatai Sevi had intended in the 17th century. The Armenians would be eliminated and they themselves, that is, the Sabbateans, the majority of whom were wealthy and powerful, would come from the Balkans to Anatolia and settle there. In this way the Jews would also be rid of the their strongest competitors.
The Sabbateans attempted not to make themselves noticed within the other communities of the Balkans. If [these] other communities sensed that the Sabbateans were different in any way, they didn’t do a thing about it. The majority of persons in the[se] other communities were very poor. Power and money were in the hands of the Sabbateans. The visible behavior and other characteristics peculiar to the Sabbateans appeared to [those of] other nations simply as behaviors that derived from their material wealth. But it was not so. On the contrary. The Sabbateans were culturally very different and they grew rich from acting in partnership with the Jews, and because, in fact, they were Jews.
There were Sabbateans who attained command and high rank within the army. Because the army was, in the eyes of the people, the savior [of the nation], they submitted to the dictates of its high officers without knowing what was being done or what it’s objectives were. Upon the orders of the [Committee of] Union and Progress, most of the Armenians were either killed in their villages or, while being driven in utter misery and deprivation to Lebanon and Syria, died on the journey.
The Armenians all know that those who killed their ancestors were the Young Turks/Union and Progress—in other words, the Jews (Musevi) and Sabbateans, who descended from the Jewish (Yahudi) race. The killers may have been Turkish on the outside, but on the inside they were in fact Jewish. Although the Sabbateans all possess Turkish names and cloak themselves in a Muslim identity, they [i.e., the Armenians] are able to make this differentiation because in the Ottoman Empire for centuries there was no interaction between them and the Muslim Turks. They all know very well with whom they interacted and they were not deceived in the least. Since the appearance of Sabbateanism the Armenians even wrote books about them. In this sense in a memorial commemorating the Genocide that was opened last year in France, they even inscribed upon this monument that it was not the Turks but the Union and Progress or Young Turks (in other words, the Sabbateans and Jews) who carried out this genocide.
Have you ever noticed that the ASALA has never killed a single Turk who descends from [true] Muslim roots? It is said that without exception only Sabbateans are accepted into the Foreign Ministry. Everybody knows this. Turkish youth who are of Muslim origin are not accepted into the Foreign Ministry so that they won’t notice the presence of Sabbateans, won’t discern their games, and [therefore] won’t tell others outside the ministry. Now think for a minute: why has the ASALA up to now only attacked [Turkish] diplomats and other Foreign Ministry employees? The reason is simple: it is because they know that those who work in the Foreign Ministry are the descendents of those ordered and are responsible for the genocide of their ancestors.
For the past years there have been a number of panel discussions on the Armenian Genocide on the ATV, Show TV, NTV, Kanal D and BRT [television channels]. For some reason, all of those who are called to be discussants are Sabbateans. Professor Eser Karakaş,[15] for instance…It is interesting that he himself carries [a surname that is identical with] the name of the Karakaş group, one of the three branches of the Sabbateans. What is this individual’s knowledge and interest in the Armenian Genocide? We knew him as a professor of business management, was it history in which he specialized? And why did he come out so strongly against the statement by his co-panelist Hürriyet’s Paris correspondent Madam [Nurdan] Bernard, that “the more young people who apply to the Foreign Ministry, the more persons will be accepted”? On another interesting note, a student at Harvard, who has been characterized by the media as “our own young, super nationalist [Turkish] girl” actually comes from a Sabbatean family.[16] It will be recalled that she allegedly stood up to French parliamentarians! She [allegedly ] taught [them] a lesson! I wonder, did the French parliamentarians even hear what she said? What wonderful scales have been placed on the eyes of the Turkish nation, and how masterfully those who have placed these scales have blinded them [to the truth]….
The Armenians are particularly aware of the Sabbatean-Greek rapprochement that has been going on for the past ten years. An example of this increasing intimacy, which has been fostered within [the framework of] Freemasonry, was seen on Show-TV. Let’s see how long before we actually notice this rapprochement….[17]
Mehmet Kamış, writer for Zaman
Mehmet Kamış, a writer for the daily Zaman, which is owned by the ‘moderate’ Islamist community of Fethullah Gülen, speaks of the Armenian deportations, but refers to it chief architect, Unionist Interior Minister Talât Pasha, as a ‘Sabbatean’:
Talât Pasha, whom Soner Yalçın characterizes as a ‘Sabbatean’ in his book Efendi, did not only bring all of these things upon our heads; instead, by exaggerating the actions that he took when writing in his notebook, which has now appeared I don’t know how many years since his death, he has continued to cause us troubles.[18]
Kamış goes on in this column to depict the question of the Armenian massacres as the problem of Talat Pasha, whom he takes pains to portray as a Sabbatean: “The Armenian [D]eportation”, he claims, “is not a problem for the Ottomans and the Turks. It is the problem of Talat Pasha and his ilk”.
İbrahim Karagül, Foreign Policy Columnist for Yeni Şafak
Another Islamist writer who has broached the question of who conceived of and planned the Armenian Deportation is İbrahim Karagül, a commentator on foreign policy issues for the daily Yeni Şafak, an Islamist daily owned by the Albayraklar Group, which is known for its close ties with the ruling Justice and Development Party, (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP). In a piece on the Armenian question that appeared in May, 2005 Karagül states:
There are no aspects of the Armenian [D]eportation and genocide claims that have not already been debated. Turkey’s relations with the rest of the world have continually be framed within the parameters of this painful debate. While the United States and the European powers have repeatedly employed the genocide claim as the most effective means of pushing Turkey into a corner, Turkey itself continues to hope for help against these claims from the Jewish lobby in the United States.
Karagül then presents his readers with three sources for consideration:
1) an article by Joseph Brewda published in 1994 and which appears on the website of The Schiller Institute, named after the 18th century German poet and dramatist Friedrich Schiller and established by the American politician and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche and his wife Helga Zepp LaRouche. In his article, Brewda claims that the American Jewish organization B’nai B’rith took control of the Middle East by means of Dönme, Zionist and Freemasonic members of the Committee of Union and Progress.[19]
2) a web article by Clifford Shack claiming that the famous American [sic] Jewish Rothschild family concocted the Armenian Deportation with the aim of gaining control of the Middle Eastern oil reserves.[20]
3) An article by the Armenian American Jack Manuelian, who is also the author of the book Nostradamus: Predictions of World War III (distributed by an American publisher known for its ‘conspiracy theory’ works). Manuelian claims—largely on the basis of the two aforementioned articles—that the Armenian Deportation was carried out by the Dönmes.[21]
After making frequent reference to these three sources, Karagül hedges his bets:
I’m simply sharing [this information] with my readers…I’m not claiming that these [claims] are true. But there is a sensitive question that I have not been able to answer: Are we, the people who live on this patch of earth, being forced to pay the price for the sins of others? We all notice the dark clouds that hover over Turkey. For the sake of this country we will all struggle against these with all our might. But I wonder: are we only doing ourself evil by acting so? I mean, who is defending whom here? The subject impels us to come face to face with ourselves….[22]
Karagül’s piece would in the following days be widely quoted by the Islamist daily Millî Gazete,[23] and only Engin Ardıç of the centrist daily Akşam would offer any criticism of the Yeni Şafak writer’s claims:
In recent times Turkey has been experiencing a ‘Sabbatean’ crisis. Certain ‘eccentric thinkers’ in possession of questionable mental states have been tossing a Sabbatean stone in the well; no one has any intention of pulling it out again—and the fact is, no one could [once it’s been thrown]. On the contrary, there are those who have something to gain by having this stone remain there, and who are attempting to quickly convert it into ‘a series of articles, [which will lead] to increased sales and [thus, more] money’….that is shameful.
Let me quickly explain for the psychopaths that I have no connection, either close or distant, with Judaism, Sabbateanism or ‘Dönme-ism’. That said, I also don’t believe that these are a condition of which one need be ashamed. But some consider it so strange that I would devote attention to questions like the concentration camps, genocide and such, that they delight in searching out alternate reasons for this [behavior]; so much so that one of my Jewish readers even said “O.K., Engin Bey, [it’s out of a love for] humanity and whatnot. We got it. But really, why are you so interested in these topics?” I wonder: did he think I would ultimately turn out to be a ‘dönme’?
The word ‘dönme’ is used in this country as a term of opprobrium. And because in recent years in particular it has also been used in the sense of ‘a person who changes their sex’ [i.e., a transsexual], it also conjures up all manner of negative associations.
The person who has ‘converted’ to Islam, meaning he or she has come from another religion and chosen Islam is not to be debased—on the contrary, they are to be exalted and embraced. To say such things like ‘He used to belong to another religion, and only became a real human because of us’ either to their face or behind their back is absolutely disgraceful.
And so among us [the word] ‘dönme’ [i.e., ‘convert’] is an insult…And the one who is doing this is an old Marxist![24] Go, figure…
Yes, it’s true. The masonic lodges of Salonica in particular played a role—not in the founding of the Committee for Union and Progress, but in its transformation into a [political] party and, later on, in its coming to power as well. Enver and Cemal were not masons, but Talât was. (As for the situation of [other] leading figures like Bahaettin Şakir, Nazım of Florina and Mithat Şükrü, go and ask it yourself to the Supreme Master [of the freemason lodge] ….But in order to assert that this [organization] was simply ‘the result of a grand conspiracy to take control of the Ottoman [Empire] and the Middle East [as a whole]’ one has to be a few cards short of a full deck!
They may have indeed been able to imagine ‘giving equality and freedom to all of the peoples of the Ottoman [Empire], and meanwhile plucking off an autonomous Jewish province in Palestine’.
Just look: this upstart Armenian, some fellow by the name of Jak Manuelian has asserted that ‘the Sabbateans who wished to seize the economy of the Middle East from the Christians concocted the Armenian deportation’. Whoa, stop right there. The ones who created the Armenian deportation were Turanist and Unionist bureaucracy that wanted to create a [racially] pure and unadulterated fortress, a true homeland that would remain from the shrinking and crumbling [Ottoman] Empire, one last piece of earth in Anatolia in which we could seek refuge.
This policy ‘overlapped’ (as the intellectuals love to say) with this same party’s policy of wishing to take the economy out of the hands of the minorities and giving it to the Turkish nation, or more correctly, of wanted to create a Turkish bourgeoisie, because there were no proper Turkish merchants available [at the time].[25]
Dünden Bugüne Tercüman Columnist Nuh Gönültaş[26]
Several weeks before the Karagül piece the Islamist journalist Nuh Gönültaş, well known for his antisemitic conspiracy theories, published an article that is worth quoting in full:
Bediüzzaman fought against the Armenian armed gangs and the Russian army, but he never harmed civilians. Bediüzzaman freed the thousands of Armenian children who were collected over the course of these battles and returned them to their families in Russia. This action was an important lesson by example for the Armenians and they were astounded at the ethics of the Muslims. In response the Armenian militia heads abandoned their custom of slaughtering the Muslim children [that fell into their hands] and vowed, “If Molla Said will not slaughter our wives and children and instead turn them over to us, from this point on we will not slaughter Muslim children”. One blizzard-filled night, during a battle with the Russian and Armenian soldiers over the city of Bitlis, [Bediüzzaman] broke his leg while jumping from a wall into a ditch in an attempt to hide under a bridge and remained there with his students for two days, lying in a drainage canal amid the ice. They were finally forced to surrender so as not to freeze to death.
One can read in the book Tarihçe-i Hayat’tan ve Bilinmeyen Taraflarıyla Bediüzzaman Said Nursi how he rescued a great number of Armenian civilians from the hands of Muslim militiamen who were going to kill them. That’s but a summary of one part of the event that concerns Bediüzzaman. But there is a very interesting duplicity in regard to the question of the Armenian Genocide. Unfortunately it was the Armenians and the Kurds who did this. Although the Armenians and the Armenian terror organizations know full well which particular community having an ‘international’ reach within the Committee of Union and Progress helped to transform the ‘deportation’ operation into a tragedy, and which later killed many of its important leaders, they do not state this openly. Why not? Because today, just like back then and every time since then, it is the same center of power that nourishes the Armenian Diaspora. They cannot go any further than this center.
Tell me, who gave to Professor Vahakn Dadrian, [an Armenian-American professor] who has devoted his life to obtaining official recognition for the Armenian Genocide, a prize “for the contributions that he has made to genocide studies”? The International Jewish Holocaust Conference. They held their gathering this year in Florida in the United States on March 5-8. Five years ago this crew demanded that Turkey accept “the Armenian genocide as a reality whose histor[ical] truth is undeniable”.[27] Among the names [of those receiving this award] is Eli Wisel [sic], a survivor of the Auschwitz [sic] [extermination] camp and one of the closest advisors of U.S. Presidents.
So what has happened in recent years to those persons who for years spoke of the Armenian ‘genocide’ and then, at the last moment came to support the Turkish position and withdrew their genocide resolutions from the conference?
The first accusation in this matter was expressed five years ago by Israel’s former National Education Minister Yosi Sarid, thereby causing a diplomatic crisis. [At that time] Sarid said: “In our new history [textbooks] I want to see a lengthy section about genocide and the Armenian genocide must be mentioned openly in this section. This is our duty to you and to ourselves”.[28]
In fact the subject is quite complicated, but it’s not so out of control as all that. In order to be able to understand the Armenian question it is necessary to know [about] the ‘Auspicious Event’, [that is] the elimination of the Janissaries, and how the gang of Jewish community leaders was also eliminated–the same leaders who exploited the Janissary officers during the course of these momentous events, to make them turn over their large rice cauldrons [in revolt], how all their assets were seized, how [all] Jewish influence was removed from the government and how the Armenians were brought in their place.[29]
The disputes between these two minorities derived not from the land dispute [that, originating with] the Young Turks [and continuing] down to the establishment of the Union and Progress Party, but with the struggles between these two groups for commercial advantage. The Armenians were always much more capable artisans than the Jews and because it was not a part of the [ Armenians’] culture they generally did not engage in commerce “by eliminating their competitors by other means”. But that wasn’t the case with their rivals. During the 1870s Ottoman Jewry (including Dönmes (Avdeti) and Masons), which was centered in Salonica began to organize itself and grow in strength. Through the assistance of the French, Italians and other foreign powers they began to understand the dimensions of their own united power in the economic field. They destroyed the [Ottoman] Imperial Dynasty and began planting the seeds of an entirely new state that [in which] they themselves would establish. But their most important rivals, the Armenians, would spoil their plans. Ever since Greek Independence, the Greek Orthodox [Ottoman subject] had formed an enormous problem. But the Armenians were, in contrast to them, “the loyal community”. They had settled in Anatolia and in the capital [i.e., Istanbul]. For this reason you cannot find Armenians among the Young Turks or the C[ommittee of] U[nion and] P[rogress]. In fact, at the beginning there was a fair amount of mutual sympathy [between the two sides], but later on things quickly changed. The CUP’s “steel core” embarked on preparations to eliminate the Armenians. What they intended to do was to drive out the Armenians, who for centuries had established a powerful edifice within the various [population] centers of Anatolia, and to establish a state in which the control and administration would be in their own hands. The Armenians all knew that the ones who “brainwashed” their ancestors were the European states and Russia, along with the great weapon and finance cartels.
Just as [the Armenians] betrayed the Ottoman [Empire] for the Russians during the First World War, the [Kurdish] Peshmerga that trusted Bush the father in 1991 and revolted against Saddam [Hussein], only to be scattered into the mountains by the hundreds of thousands, fell into this same state. The Armenians know full well who the real persons are with whom they have accounts [to settle], but there isn’t a whole lot that they can do about it today. They are in the situation in which a ‘carrot’ has been held out before them yet again. Just as they knew who was behind the events of September 6-7, 1955, and who gained ownership of their property for but a pittance. Indeed, the basic question here is one of ethics, and they can’t say it. They know very well about Dr. Nâzım, Finance Minister Cavid, Talat [Pasha], Cemal [Pasha], CUP Secretary-General Mithat Şükrü Bleda and the “special” connections between this group. Just as they knew about Dr. Yahya Muhlis Bey, the CUP member who, while appearing to be vaccinating the Armenian villages in the Bingöl and Bitlis areas against the contagious diseases, was actually infecting the population with the typhoid and typhus microbes.
It is clear that we have entered into volatile times, but it’s still necessary to be able to be calm and objective about everything. I should remind [my readers] just how much of an incendiary matter the insulting of the [Turkish] flag represented during the Nevruz demonstrations. During the events of September 6-7 [1955], the naive population was driven into Şişli and Bakırköy by such empty boasts as “Atatürk’s house in Salonica has been bombed” and the final elimination of the Armenians and Greeks was carried out. There’s benefit to be had in being cautious![30]
Apart from the fact that Gönültaş has lifted nearly half his piece word-for-word from the aforementioned 2001 web article (see the section on Mehmed Şevket Eygi) while leaving out any overt references to the Dönmes, even at first glance it becomes apparent that the author’s intent is to exonerate Muslim Turks from any responsibility for the Armenian genocide and place the entire blame for the planning and execution of the atrocities on the Sabbateans. Gönültaş doesn’t stop their, however, and even insinuates that they incited the 1955 anti-Greek riots as well, a claim subsequently reiterated by Yalçın Küçük.
Bülent Şahin Erdeğer
Bülent Erdeğer, editor of the journal Kur’an Nesli “Qur’an Generation” of the website with the same name (www.kurannesli.info) and a contributor to the radical Islamist journal Haksöz also seems to believe that the Dönmes were influential in the decision to deport the Armenian population of Anatolia. In a lengthy piece titled “The Armenian Question in the Context of Atrocities and Genocide” he writes:[31]
A rather powerful commercial bourgeoisie was raised up in Salonica. The Salonican dönmes [i.e., the Sabbateans] distinguished themselves quite thoroughly as a commercial bourgeoisie, through their level of culture, their knowledge of languages, the printing houses they established, their newspapers, clubs and special schools. The Dönmes and the Jews both lent their support to the Young Turk movement. They hoped that a change of regime would provide them with the opportunity to destroy the [commercial] monopoly of the Greek and Armenian businessmen in Istanbul. For the sake of their own interests, this burgeoning commercial bourgeoisie was much closer to the Central Powers, to Germany and Austria. In their economic relations with Turkey the British and French generally supported the Greeks and Armenians. As for the Germans, whose economic relations with Turkey were rapidly developing, they showed a greater tendency to support the Jewish and Muslim bourgeoisie. By means of the Masonic Societies ties were established between the leading figures of the [Committee of] Union and Progress and the Salonica Bourgeoisie. It was against just such political conditions and social relations that the 1908 Movement came to fruition.
The movement did not long remain a movement of [army] officers and intellectuals, but also rested on a social foundation, being supported by a commercial bourgeoisie intent on destroying the monopoly in economic life established by the pashas and the wealthy Greek and Armenians. The 3rd army corps commander of the Action Army that marched from Salonica to Istanbul on March 31 [1909] was Hüseyin Hüsnü Pasha. We can see this name appearing on the list of famous Masons that the Masons themselves have provided. The Adjutant Major (Kolağası) of the Action Army was Mustafa Kemal. Whether out of the historical Jewish-Armenian hostility, due to the dominance of the Jewish and Sabbatean elements within the CUP, or as a result of the effort to create a ‘Turkish’ bourgeoisie, the pro-German CUP embarked upon a complete settling of accounts with the problematic Armenians by means of the Armenian genocide. The period was a republican epoch, and in order to sell property to the bourgeoisie it was necessary to have a state like a republic, an ideology like nationalism, a nation like the Turks and a national market like Anatolia…and that is what happened. From the standpoint of both its the leaders and its ideologues, the CUP was a construct stamped first by its Sabbatean and secondly, its Jewish identity—and in that period the Jews needed a state, a country….
During those trying days, the extent of efforts that the Jews living in Istanbul showed on behalf of the Turkist cause was made manifest in the area of supplying the Nationalist Government with intelligence, weapons and other supplies. At the head of those providing services, and especially the provision of intelligence, was Avram Galanti. Çetin Yetkin shares the following information with his readers: “Moreover, let me state that when I appealed to Üzeyir Garih, the businessman about whose father we had obtained snippets of information concerning his involvement in the same type of activities, and asked him whether or not such information existed on this matter, we learned from him that beginning in 1919 his father had worked with Colonel—later, Turkish Ambassador to Vienna and Paris—Behiç (Erkin) Bey in smuggling people to Anatolia and intelligence gathering, and that another person with whom he had had connections was Kara Kemal”. [32]
Erdeğer adds the following warning in one of his footnotes: “Nevertheless, it is important not to forget that it is obvious that the claims of the popular conspiracy theories that have recently emerged about Sabbateanism, whereby all the events are connected to one single cause/Judaism, are both tenuous and [highly] speculative”. However, coming as it does within a lengthy exposition insinuating that it is precisely such a Jewish/Dönme/Masonic cabal that is responsible for the tumultuous events in the Ottoman-Turkish realm during the first quarter of the 20th century, his qualification rings false, and must be seen as nothing more than an attempt to ‘cover himself’ against accusations of subscribing to such theories.
M. Emin Kazcı, writer for Anadolu’da Vakit
M. Emin Kazcı, a writer for the radical Islamist daily Anadolu’da Vakit, also made his contribution to the incestuous, gossipy nature of much of the ‘yellower’ Turkish press by citing the aforementioned articles by Jack Manuelian and Clifford Shack, having read about them in the İbrahim Karagül piece in Yeni Şafak. In a piece in which he explains the reasons of the American Jewish organizations’ support of the position of the Turkish Republic in opposing the latest (January 2007) “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution” (USHR No. 106) submitted to the U.S. Congress, Kazcı writes:
[AK Party] Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül went to America.
As is well known, there is an “Armenian Genocide Resolution” on the agenda of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The matter at hand is that Gül, having contacted various circles within this milieu, is working to convince the concerned parties that Turkey-U.S. relations would be severely hurt should the aforementioned resolution be accepted into law.
According to the reports that have again been appearing in our press, the Jewish lobbies in the U.S. are attempting to block [the passage] of the resolution by exercising their influence in Congress.
In fact, it has long been known that the Jewish lobbies take the position of fully supporting Turkey against the claims of the alleged Armenian genocide.
While some have attempted to portray this stance as “a steadfast love for Turkey”, there is of course no place in the language of international relations for such notions as “best of friends”.
We can safely state that the Jewish lobbies’ coolness toward the Armenians’ genocide claims derives from two general sources. The first of these is the Armenian claims that the Jews and some of their leading companies played a central role in the bringing about of the alleged genocide.
According to the Armenian claims, the Young Turks, who carried out the massacres against them and who—again, according to their claims—were composed primarily of Sabbateans and Masons, were but all pawns. The real power behind all of these was the French Jewish Rothschild family and their war for oil.
In his article titled “The Planned, Organized and Executed Genocide of the Armenians” the Armenian writer Jack Manuelian claims that the Armenian genocide that was carried out between 1915-1923 was planned by the Young Turks who appeared to be Muslims, but who were actually composed of (Sabbatean) Balkan Jews who were members of a secret sect”….
No doubt, to what degree these claims are in agreement with historical truth is a separate issue for debate.
Ultimately, some of these claims have found some resonance within Armenian circles.
Nevertheless, it is not possible to understand the reasons that the Jewish lobby has remained so cool and distant on the question of the “Alleged Armenian Genocide” without knowing these claims that hold the Jews directly “responsible” [for the crime].
The second reason that the Jewish lobbies have distanced themselves from the “Genocide” claims is that, from the strategic viewpoint they find a second claim of a genocide—one that will take place next to their own in the world—to run contrary to their interests.
They do not wish to share with others a weapon that they have used as an extremely effective and useful instrument in the international arena, this much is clear.
Certainly, every approach is important and valuable that would support Turkey’s claims against the Armenian lobbies and the Western powers that support them, who, if we observe their various, shrouded middle and long-range goals, wish to forcibly brand Turkey with the mark of ‘perpetrator of genocide’.
Yet, without getting swept away with unnecessary delusions and emotionality, Turkey who is struggling for its existence within a difficult geography nevertheless has both the right and the duty to know the what and why of things.[33]
BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 