During the same week when Israeli president Shimon Peres apologized for the Kafr Kassem massacre of Arab civilians in 1956, official Armenia expressed its optimism that Israel will soon recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Written by the same author who reported the recent vandalism of Armenia’s Holocaust Memorial, an article in the Jerusalem Post states that an adviser to Armenia’s president explains that Israel’s affirmation of the Armenian Genocide is not a matter of if but of when.

The government of Armenia is “very hopeful” that Israel will soon recognize the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by Turks as an “act of genocide,” a senior Armenian official told The Jerusalem Post last week.

[…]

“I am very hopeful that Israel, step by step, will recognize it as well… We are very hopeful and we are waiting for it,” Yeritsyan said.

Contacted by the Post, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

[…]

Israel, an ally of the Republic of Turkey, has been avoiding the term “genocide” when talking about the extermination of the Armenians.  Furthermore, some Israeli leaders, including Shimon Peres, have been charged with genocide denial in their attempts to minimize the Armenian experience.  Peres, for instance, has been fiercely criticized for an earlier characterization of Armenian accounts of the Genocide as “meaningless.”  In his more recent refusal to refer to the Armenian Genocide as such, nonetheless, Peres has said it is up to Turkey and Armenia to solve the “issue.”

The fact that Peres has officially apologized for the Kafr Kassem massacre is very encouraging and should serve as an example to the Turkish government.

I am not talking about recognizing the Armenian Genocide tomorrow and placing plaques next to the “memorials” of the organizers of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey telling the truth.  Israel apologizes for killing 48 civilians; why doesn’t Turkey apologize for over a million death?

Let’s say that Turkey genuinely believes that “only” 300,000 Armenians were killed during World War I.  Isn’t that 300,000 lives to apologize for?  Let’s say Turkey genuinely thinks the term genocide cannot be applied to the Armenian case; why doesn’t it apologize for “the Armenian massacre” then?

The horrible truth is that the denial of the Armenian Genocide is not a simple refusal to apply the term genocide to the Armenian experience.  The denial of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is refusal that any kind of crime has been committed against the Armenian people.  It is microdenial – an attempt to legitimize the extermination of the Armenian civilization from what is today’s Turkey.

The mainstream media religiously say that “Turkey refuses the word genocide” as though as the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide only started after the word “genocide” was coined in 1944.

Years before anyone had word the term “genocide,” Turkey threatened to ban Hollywood movies if MGM produced a movie that dealt with resistance during the Armenian extermination based on a book banned by Hitler because of being written by a Jew.  After the State Department intervened, the movie was dropped.  Isn’t this absolute denial?