A step forward, two steps back

The fight to prevent future genocide

es lost one of its greatest crusaders this week, but inched

forward as a bill acknowledging the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians

passed the House International Relations Committee.

Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who relentlessly tracked

down Nazi war criminals after World War II, once said that “When

history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis weren’t able to

kill millions of people and get away with it.”

Wiesenthal died Tuesday, but his message should resonate in

Glendale and Burbank and beyond to Washington D.C., where last week a

resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide, moved on to the House

of representatives.

Embedded in Wiesenthal’s message was a need to establish justice

and moral values for humanity.

That is why it is so hard to come to grips with why the United

States government has yet to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide,

brought on at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, although the answer is

easy to come by: Politics.

Even with the mark-up last week, passing this resolution will be

an uphill battle, just like past efforts to push such a resolution

through.

The next step in that fight is convincing House leadership to

commit to moving the resolution forward, Rep. Adam Schiff said.

The resolution’s backers will have to convince House Majority

Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) to allow the resolution on the House floor

for a vote. That will be difficult given what we know about the

politics of officially recognizing the genocide.

It was DeLay who once released a statement with Reps. Dennis

Hastert (R-Ill) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), saying that such an

acknowledgment would upset the U.S. relationship with Turkey, which

has been a reliable ally of the United States for decades.

Germany, too, has been an ally. Yet, the Holocaust, is recognized,

much because of Wiesenthal’s dogged efforts to bring its perpetrators

to justice, as a specific historical moment with devastating

consequences.

Why is it that this nation’s leaders -- who tout freedom of

religion, speech and the need to transform despotic nations states

into democracies -- cannot collectively agree that the Armenian

Genocide is just that: a genocide?

What good are Wiesenthal’s efforts against prejudice against all

people if because of politics, the killing of 1.5 million people

cannot be officially recognized by the United States?

Rep. Brad Sherman, who sits on the committee, said the denial of a

genocide is a genocide’s last act.

Wiesenthal must have known that. Why doesn’t our government?

Maybe this time, the push of local representatives, the e-mails,

the faxes and the letters to legislators will make a difference.

Let’s hope so. Unfortunately, no timetable has been set for even

the possibility of a floor vote, leaving the possibility of yet

another push for recognition falling through the cracks.

Recognition of the Armenian Genocide should not be a game of

politics, up for a battle every so often. These killings were real.

And it is a horrific moment in history that needs to stay in living

memory, just as Wiesenthal kept the horrors of the Holocaust in the

collective memory.

“If we pardon this genocide, it will be repeated, and not only on

Jews,” Wiesenthal said of the Holocaust. “If we don’t learn this

lesson, then millions died for nothing.”