Historians about the Armenian Delusional Claims

[Hoca]

http://youtu.be/I2VIK7g_1aU

[Musso]

This really deserved it's own thread? What's next, making a thread every time you go to the bathroom?

[gregorius]

The first two editions of Lewis' The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961 and 1968) describe the Armenian massacres of World War I as "the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished".[20] In later editions, this text is altered to: "the terrible slaughter of 1915, when, according to estimates, more than a million Armenians perished, as well as an unknown number of Turks."[21] Lewis was later one of 69 scholars to co-sign a 1985 petition asking the US Congress to avoid a resolution condemning the events as "genocide".
The change in Lewis' textual description of the Armenian massacres, and his signing of the petition against the Congressional resolution, was controversial among some historians and journalists, who suggested that Lewis was engaging in historical revisionism to serve his own political and personal interests.[22][23] The original text had already drawn criticism for what some historians believe to be its exaggeration of unity and strength among Armenians:[24] "[Lewis] implies that both had equal military and political force at their disposal to defend their interests. The fact is that the Armenians had neither a police force nor an army".[25]

[Scholarios]

"Ninety-eight years ago, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. We pause to reflect on the lives extinguished and remember the unspeakable suffering that occurred," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "In so doing, we are joined by millions across the world and in the United States, where it is solemnly commemorated by our states, institutions, communities, and families. We also remind ourselves of our commitment to ensure that such dark chapters of history are not repeated."

BARACK OBAMA FTW

[legolasbozo]

Dear hoca, i don't know where you are living but do you have any idea about dark sides of our history? Do you know 6-7 september case (istanbul riots) ? Do you know Çorum alevi case? Do you know Maraş alevi case? Let me get this straight, your arguments about the case is "Armenians killed us so we did." Can i ask you something, istanbul greeks also attacked us in 1955? or Alevi citizens in Çorum? Maraş? You blame Armenian government for educate their citizens totally propaganda, but what we learned from school is not different. Our generation have exactly the same blind knowledge about what happened at those times, and we are not even talking what happened to alevi peple. We have been exposed the disgusting propaganda like armenians did. Even you didn't educated in Turkey you believe the same crap, why? Because your parents told you so, and you read just biased propaganda books, you didn't care for humanistic reasons, you just cared how israel citizen care for their countries benefits not the pain of palestinians.

[Scholarios]

We all can learn from Legolasbozo about examining our nations.Wow.

[Petros Houhoulis]

We all can learn from Legolasbozo about examining our nations.Wow.

Hmmmmm....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Armenian_Genocide


The first two editions of Lewis' The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961 and 1968) describe the Armenian massacres of World War I as "the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished".[20] In later editions, this text is altered to: "the terrible slaughter of 1915, when, according to estimates, more than a million Armenians perished, as well as an unknown number of Turks."[21] Lewis was later one of 69 scholars to co-sign a 1985 petition asking the US Congress to avoid a resolution condemning the events as "genocide".

The change in Lewis' textual description of the Armenian massacres, and his signing of the petition against the Congressional resolution, was controversial among some historians and journalists, who suggested that Lewis was engaging in historical revisionism to serve his own political and personal interests.[22][23] The original text had already drawn criticism for what some historians believe to be its exaggeration of unity and strength among Armenians:[24] "[Lewis] implies that both had equal military and political force at their disposal to defend their interests. The fact is that the Armenians had neither a police force nor an army".[25]

Lewis later called the label "genocide" the "Armenian version of this history" in a November 1993 Le Monde article, for which he faced a civil proceeding in a French court. He was ordered to pay one franc as damages for his statements on the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey. Lewis has stated that while mass murders did occur, he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to conclude it was government-sponsored, ordered or controlled and therefore did not constitute genocide. The court stated that "by concealing elements contrary to his opinion, he neglected his duties of objectivity and prudence".[26] Three other court cases against Bernard Lewis failed in Paris tribunal, including one filed by the Armenian National Committee of France and two filed by Jacques Trémollet de Villers.[27]

When Lewis received the National Humanities Medal from US President George W. Bush in November 2006, the Armenian National Committee of America objected: "The President's decision to honor the work of a known genocide denier — an academic mercenary whose politically motivated efforts to cover up the truth run counter to the very principles this award was established to honor — represents a true betrayal of the public trust."[28]

Lewis' views on the Armenian Genocide were criticized by a number of historians and sociologists, among them Alain Finkielkraut, Yves Ternon, Richard G. Hovannisian, Albert Memmi, Pierre Vidal-Naquet,[4][5][6][29][30] Stephen Zunes described Lewis as a "notorious genocide-denier",[31] and Yair Auron suggested that "Lewis’ stature provided a lofty cover for the Turkish national agenda of obfuscating academic research on the Armenian Genocide".[32] Israel Charny wrote that Lewis' "seemingly scholarly concern... of Armenians constituting a threat to the Turks as a rebellious force who together with the Russians threatened the Ottoman Empire, and the insistence that only a policy of deportations was executed, barely conceal the fact that the organized deportations constituted systematic mass murder".[33] Charny compares the "logical structures" employed by Lewis in his denial of the genocide to those employed by Ernst Nolte in his Holocaust negationism.[34]

In response, Lewis argued that:

There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempts to prevent it, which were not very successful. Yes there were tremendous massacres, the numbers are very uncertain but a million may well be likely,[35] ...[and] the issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government... there is no evidence for such a decision.[36]

Lewis stated that he believed "to make [the Armenian Genocide], a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany" was "rather absurd."[35] In an interview with Ha'aretz he stated:

The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law. What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute.[37]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Stance_on_the_Iraq_War


Jacob Weisberg has described Lewis as "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq".[48] Michael Hirsh has attributed to him the view that regime change in Iraq would provide a jolt that would "modernize the Middle East" and suggested that Lewis' allegedly 'Orientalist' theories about "What Went Wrong" in the Middle East, and other writings, formed the intellectual basis of the push towards war in Iraq.[49]

Writing in 2008, Lewis did not advocate imposing freedom and democracy on Islamic nations. "There are things you can't impose. Freedom, for example. Or democracy. Democracy is a very strong medicine which has to be administered to the patient in small, gradually increasing doses. Otherwise, you risk killing the patient. In the main, the Muslims have to do it themselves."[50]

Ian Buruma, writing for The New Yorker in an article subtitled "The two minds of Bernard Lewis", finds Lewis's stance on the war difficult to reconcile with Lewis's past statements cautioning democracy's enforcement in the world at large. Buruma ultimately rejects suggestions by his peers that Lewis promotes war with Iraq to safeguard Israel, but instead concludes "perhaps he (Lewis) loves it (the Arab world) too much":

It is a common phenomenon among Western students of the Orient to fall in love with a civilization. Such love often ends in bitter impatience when reality fails to conform to the ideal. The rage, in this instance, is that of the Western scholar. His beloved civilization is sick. And what would be more heartwarming to an old Orientalist than to see the greatest Western democracy cure the benighted Muslim? It is either that or something less charitable: if a final showdown between the great religions is indeed the inevitable result of a millennial clash, then we had better make sure that we win.[51]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Alleged_nuclear_threat_from_Iran


In 2006, Lewis wrote that Iran had been working on a nuclear weapon for fifteen years. In August 2006, in an article about whether the world can rely on the concept of mutual assured destruction as a deterrent in its dealings with Iran, Lewis wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the significance of August 22, 2006 in the Islamic calendar. The Iranian president had indicated he would respond by that date to U.S. demands regarding Iran's development of nuclear power; Lewis wrote that the date corresponded to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427, the day Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad from Jerusalem to heaven and back. Lewis wrote that it would be "an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if necessary, of the world."[52] According to Lewis, mutual assured destruction is not an effective deterrent in the case of Iran, because of what Lewis describes as the Iranian leadership's "apocalyptic worldview" and the "suicide or martyrdom complex that plagues parts of the Islamic world today".[53] He then suggests the possibility of a nuclear strike on Israel on August 22, 2006:

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back[Quran 17:1]. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.[53]

The article received significant press coverage though the day passed without any incident.[54]

In his 2009 book, Juan Cole responded that there was no evidence to suggest that Iran "had been working assiduously on a nuclear weapon for fifteen years." He also takes issue with Lewis' suggestion that Ahmedinejad "might deploy this weapon against Israel on August 22, 2006":

Lewis's beliefs about Iran are even more bizarre than Ahmadinejad's about Israel, but unfortunately he had the ear of the Bush administration. Of course, nothing came of his ridiculous prophecy, which said more about the irrational anxieties of Western ultra-Zionists than about Iranian political reality.[55]

Is Lewis credible?

He looks more like a complete idiot to me who used to support Turkey while Turkey was an ally of Israel. I'd like to see his stance if and when Turkey breaks down completely its' relations with Israel... Maybe he shall switch his position in the Armenian genocide once more...

[Musso]

More about Lewis:


Bernard Lewis is a well-known professor of Middle Eastern Studies. What Vaz did not reveal was that his remark, in an interview with Le Monde in 1993, caused him to be prosecuted in France and fined (if only one franc) for denying the Armenian genocide. 100
In a later interview he said “no one has any doubts that terrible events took place” and that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died. 101 He explained that he had only been seeking in Le Monde to deny the claim that there was a close parallel between the sufferings of the Armenians and the sufferings of the Jews in Nazi Germany: some of the former were active in fighting against the state while the latter were not in any kind of armed opposition to Nazi rule. He accepted that “ the Turks certainly resorted to very ferocious methods” in repelling Armenian freedom fighters but insisted “ there is clear evidence of a decision by the Turkish government to deport the Armenian population ... there is no evidence of a decision to massacre . . . ” 102 Lewis does not understand that a finding of genocide may be inferred from a government’s deliberate failure to protect those it is deporting, the majority of whom – women and children – were certainly not active in fighting against the state. Lewis complains that “nowadays the word “genocide” is used very loosely even in cases where no bloodshed is involved at all” 103 – which is not a complaint that could be made against labelling as “genocide” events in which up to half the members of a particular race were exterminated. The Vaz letter suggests that Lewis is an FCO “source,” but there is no evidence in the documents that he has ever been consulted. It may well be that the FCO was only alerted to his view as a result of the publicity about his prosecution.

[Scholarios]

Hmmmmm....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Armenian_Genocide



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Stance_on_the_Iraq_War



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Alleged_nuclear_threat_from_Iran



Is Lewis credible?

He looks more like a complete idiot to me who used to support Turkey while Turkey was an ally of Israel. I'd like to see his stance if and when Turkey breaks down completely its' relations with Israel... Maybe he shall switch his position in the Armenian genocide once more...

I agree. Legolasbozo agrees also it seems. He always speaks up about the Armenian issue here. And Lewis just one of the bogus historians that has been posted here in regards to attacking the Armenians.