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May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review April 26, 2007 / 8 Iyar, 5767

Choosing allies over principles

By Jonathan Tobin



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Congressional fight over Turkish genocide of Armenians puts Jews in a difficult spot


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If you had the choice between telling the truth about 20th-century genocide - and thereby alienating a contemporary strategic ally of the United States and Israel - or ignoring or downplaying the genocide and keeping the ally happy, which would you do?


Is this just an interesting hypothetical for grad students in ethics or philosophy to chew on?


No. It is a real-life question that must be answered not only by American lawmakers, but by Jewish organizations that are simultaneously pledged to promote both the strategic interests of both the the U.S.-Israel alliance, as well as speak out on issues of human rights.

A FAITHFUL ALLY
The dilemma concerns the history of Turkey, a nation that has in recent decades assumed tremendous importance in the Middle East. Turkey is a NATO ally that faithfully stood by the United States during the Cold War, even sending troops to fight alongside ours in Korea. It was also the first Islamic country in the region to recognize the State of Israel.


More than that, its defense establishment has ties with the Israel Defense Force, and the two nations form an informal, loose-alliance of non-Arab states with a mutual interest in resisting the rise not only of Islamist terror, but the malevolent influence of rogue states like Syria and Iran.


That's due primarily to the influence of Kemal Attaturk, who led the Turkish state that emerged from the ruin of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Attaturk created a modern Turkish nationalism based on strict secularism.


Relations between Israel and Turkey have cooled a bit in recent years due to the election triumphs of Turkish Islamists who sought to distance Ankara from Jerusalem. And in the aftermath of the country's refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and their embrace last year of a Palestinian Authority run by Hamas terrorists, they can no longer be termed reliable.


But even pessimists about the future of Turkey understand its crucial role as a firewall against jihadists. Turkey's military - the most powerful force in its society - is still an effective check on the Islamists, and has participated in joint military exercises with the Israelis.


But it does have one sensitive point that poses a problem. It refuses to own up to the crimes committed by Ottoman forces against ethnic Armenians during World War I.


Though the Turks like to act as if this episode is a great historical mystery that defies explanation, the truth is relatively simple. During the First World War, the Ottoman Turks fought not only Britain (whose forces ultimately wrested Palestine, Syria and Iraq from them) but also the Russians.


Caught in the middle were Christian Armenians, who were despised as dhimmi sympathizers with the foreign enemy.


After a series of military reverses, the so-called "Young Turk" government in Istanbul ordered mass deportations of Armenians from parts of Anatolia. From 1915-17, as many as 1 million Armenians died as result of the attending hardships, as well as atrocities on the part of Turkish troops.


It was the first modern genocide, and the fact that the perpetrators were never held accountable is often cited as a reason why the Nazis thought they could get away with trying to exterminate the Jews.


But since their modern state came into being fighting for the hegemony of Turkish ethnicity over the large non-Turkish enclaves inside their country, the notion of owning up to the truth about that era has always been anathema to the Turks. To this day, their government denies that the deaths of Armenians were the result of a concerted plan, and claim that it should only be understood in the context of a war in which casualties were experienced by both sides.


The Turks would do better to acknowledge what happened and move on. But living as they do with ongoing conflicts over land and identity with Cypriot Greeks and Kurds, they cling to their policy of stonewalling the Armenians and demand that their allies back them up.


For almost a century, Armenians have sought to keep the memory of their suffering alive. That's the point of a congressional resolution on the question set to be passed by the House of Representatives that will recognize the atrocities against the Armenians as "genocide."


You would think that a Jewish community that has expended so much effort not only to enshrine the memory of the Holocaust but to ensure that it serve as an example to warn against crimes against others would be aligned with the Armenians, but that's not entirely correct.

TRUTH OR SURVIVAL?
Though many Jews support the genocide resolution, some of the biggest Jewish communal players, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (which has worked for years to build support for the Israel-Turkey alliance), are not. ADL head Abe Foxman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that "the Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history, nor should the U.S. Congress."


How do we balance the need to support historical truth against the strategic imperative of the present?


The answer is that we can't.


No one should expect Jews, of all people, to lie about mass murder. The Turkish policy of official historical revisionism is as absurd as it is counterproductive. The Turks' stand on the Armenians only harms their international standing and efforts to integrate with the West. But their realpolitik apologists have one point worth considering.


Given the current state of the Middle East and the West's ongoing battle against the jihadists, is this really the best moment for us to be pressing the Turks about their past?


In theory, a victory for historic truth ought to serve as insurance for Jews and any other people who have faced annihilation and may yet again. Moralists may be right to pose this question as one of absolutes, but in wartime, you can't always pick and choose your allies. Would it be worth it to damage an alliance with Turkey just to make a point about the truth of Armenian suffering? That might makes us feel righteous, but if it leads to more deaths in the future, would it be right?


Will an Armenian genocide resolution help us defend Israel against the threat of, say, an Iranian attempt at nuclear genocide better than a friendly Turkey? Some might believe that to be true. But can anyone who cares about the possibility of another mass murder of a non-Muslim population in the Middle East be indifferent to the possibility that it won't?

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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.

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