Fitzgerald: Greek and Armenian dhimmitude

This is very disturbing to me!! You would think that the Greek government would learn not only from history but current events about the threat of masses of Turks migrating into Greece and other parts of Europe. After all they have the right to take it from the Greek Infidels since it had once belonged to Islam- very foolish. History repeats itself and just like some Byzantine Emperors the Greek government is only short sighted and misses the long-term threat from the Turks. History will repeat itself and just like after the Battle of Manzikert the Turkish masses will migrate to Greece and colonize.
I wonder if the children or grandchildren of my relatives, in Greece, will one day be forced to leave their ancient homeland in the same way the Turks forced out my Papoo's (grandfather)family out of E. Thrake.
Where is the logic in this??????
Reminds of Michael savages latest book- "Liberalims is a Mental Disorder"

Lets not forget the Nagorno Karabakh genocide in the 1990's! While Kosovo should be independant, apparently, the same governments do not recognise Nagorno Karabakh even though it is a democracy and has been armenia for longer than most western nations have existed!

The british foreign office gave a written response at the time of the genocide against armenians in nagorno karabakh which stated: "britain does not have interests in affairs abroad but only interests, and there is oil in the region"

BP are doing rather well out of Azerbiajan. I'm sure BP is upset the armenians in NK valued thier lives more than BP's profits...

A friend told me how her grandma was the youngest of many children in Armenia and when she was small and the Turks came to take young girls away she was sometimes hidden in a hat box.

Another time a turk was about to take one of her older sisters and she ran out from hiding and told the man not to take her sister.

For some reason (maybe behind every moslem is a human waiting to get out?) he took pity and didn't take the girl.

I await a moslem pretending to be some sort of historian or academic to correct me. Surprisingly, I will believe what I saw with my own eyes on visiting the region over his lies...

Hugh visit Athens, or Sparta, or Corinth, or Thessalonika, or any Cretan City, or go to the small towns, you will be pleasantly surprised to see that Greeks are not the Dhimmis you describe, while British and French Dhimmis whole heartedly support all Arab Political Causes Armenia and Greece have only intensified efforts to increase trade with Israel and improve government relations, and to Eagle the only Byzantine Emperor not to see the Turks as a threat was Leo III and since the Turks where Pagan at the time it was very reasonable for him to consider them natural allies.

The attitudes of 'Taki' from Pat Buchanan's American Conservative are instructive. One the one hand, his disgust for all things Israeli(and Jewish)bleed through his writing on 'neoconservatives,' W, Israel ect.ect.ect.ect.

Yet, on the otherhand, he strongly dissents on the 'cartoon brou-ha-ha,' writing from his London pad how disgusted he was with the throngs of Islamists protesting outside of his flat . . . nearby the Danish embassy. He strongly dissents from Pat Buchanan on this issue who also expresses some disjointed thinking on the 'Arabs.' On the one hand, as haters of israel(jews), he supports Iran, dislikes W's support of israel, and STRONGLY comes down against the danes and in favor of the Arabs in terms of the cartoon Jihad. Yet, his, truer, 'nativist,' sentiments come out in terms of his strong disliking of the Dubai works deal. Arabs need not apply!

So, you have contradictory attitudes, some, in Taki's case, influenced by dhimmitude, others, in both cases, from the disllike of Jews. Bizarro, isn't it, how contradictory one's thinking can become.

Would this "Taki" be the same Taki Theodoracopoulos who writes a column in the back of the Spectator? He mostly writes about his life among the "rich white trash" of Gstaad and such places, but occasionally drops in a admiring reference to the late and unlamented German war-machine. I think he has been an embarrassment to the Spectator at times.

"an embarrassment to the Spectator at times."
-- from a posting above

At all times.

The point of the article could, among those who are clever, favor even in Turkey, among secularist Turks embarrassed by Islam (this leaves out Mustafa Akyol and other new-old Young Turks). There was nothing echt turkische about what Armenians, Greeks, Jews (or for that matter the other Christians, especially the Serbs and Bulgars, in Ottoman-ruled domains) had to endure. It was a question of Islam, and anyone reading the eyewitness accounts of Armenian suriviors is struck by how often the word "giavour" comes up, and the special pleasure taken by attackers, who were not only Turks but also Kurds in Anatolia and Arabs harassing refugees straggling through the Syrian Desert. It is not Turks but Muslims, many but not all of them Turks, who attacked Armenian Christians who, had they been Muslim, would not have been attacked.

The genocide against the Armenians is now widely recognized in Europe and official recognition of it by Turkey will certainly be a precondition for further consideration of Turkey's candidacy for admission into the E.U. It makes sense to study the matter, to admit that the genocide took place, and to attribute it, appropriately, to impulses that are to be located in Islam, and not merely in "ethnic" resentments, and furthermore, to implicate local Muslims other than Turks. This is explanatory, but not exculpatory.

improve government relations, and to Eagle the only Byzantine Emperor not to see the Turks as a threat was Leo III and since the Turks where Pagan at the time it was very reasonable for him to consider them natural allies.

I wish this were true but if I had the time I could bring up numerous emperors who really did not take the Turkish threat and under the circumstances they were often powerless to do anything, espicially after Manzikert. I hope my Greek brethern realize that it is still a threat.
Are you Greek?
I have read numerous primary and secondary sources about Byzantine history although my Masters degree focuses on pre-Greek to the Hellenistic period.
A final today!!!

At all times

:-)

So who are the three writers in the Ides of March competition?

"So who are the three writers in the Ides of March competition?"
-- from a posting above

The envelope containing the winner or near-winner, the correct answer, and all relevant details and descants, will be opened here at JW as soon as the judge gets around to it, even as early as tonight. But that, of course, would be pushing the envelope. Not to mention that judge.

Greek politicians' dhimmitude is recent. In 1997, Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos said on the absence of Greek-Turkish dialogue: 'We have nothing to do with Turkey. A man can't discuss things with murderers, rapists and thieves.' Yet, two years later, Pangalos' successor George Papandreou was declaring that: 'Both Greece and Turkey have rich cultural traditions. Building a multicultural Europe means that we need to enhance our cultural identities and understand each other's specificity.' In 2001, Prime Minister Kostas Simitis showed how far Greek politicians were now prepared to go to appease Turkey, when he acted to remove the word 'genocide' from a presidential decree marking 14 September as a remembrance day for those Greeks massacred in Asia Minor by the Turks in 1922.
Greece's decline into dhimmitude stems from a belief among the country's political class that Greece's terrible economic plight is a consequence of too much nationalism, the state of cold war that has existed with Turkey for more than 50 years, and the vast amount of money the country spends on defence. The solution, the politicians concluded, was to put an end to confrontation with Turkey. This, in effect, has meant abandoning Cyprus, the rights of the Greeks of Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos, ignoring Turkish military aggression in the Aegean and so on. This is a stupid policy for the following reasons:
1. Greece's economic problems do not stem from Cyprus or confrontation with Turkey, but Greece's semi-Soviet economy, the absence of an enterprise culture, a rotten education system, and the state-dependency mentality that exists throughout Greek society.
2. Abandoning Cyprus and the Greek minority in Turkey, rewriting Greek history and so on, will not encourage Turkey to moderate its behaviour; rather the Turks will take all this as a sign of Greek weakness and become even more belligerent.
Indeed, since the so-called detente began, I would like someone to point out to me one concession Turkey has made to Greece. Has one Turkish soldier or Turkish settler been removed from Cyprus? Have the Turkish violations of Greek airspace in the Aegean abated? Have any of the restrictions on the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople been lifted? Has the casus belli if Greece should exercise its right to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean been revoked?
Greek dhimmis should study the fate of the later period of the Byzantine Empire, when concession after concession to the Turks did not result in the survival of the Byzantines but in their humiliation and eventual destruction.

It is worth pointing out, however, that official Greek dhimmitude is not reflected in wider society. Most Greeks, I think it is fair to say, despise Islam and regard it as a barbaric and anti-human phenomenon. My confidence in Greek anti-dhimmitudity is based on the following:
1. The staunch opposition of the residents of Peania to the building of a Saudi-funded mosque and Islamic cultural centre in their town to service Athens' growing Muslim immigrant population.
2. The Orthodox church, which has no qualms about expressing its opposition to Turkey and Islam. In 2003, Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the church in Greece, rejected the prospect of Turkey joining the EU, describing the Turks as 'barbarians [who] cannot become part of the Christian family because we can't live together'.
Last month, Christodoulos described Turkey's possible EU accession as an attempt 'to forestall an evil by creating an even greater evil.'
3. The reaction of Greeks to the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Like their Orthodox allies, the Serbs, most Greeks identified the struggle in Bosnia and Kosovo as an anti-Ottoman liberation struggle. Many Greek volunteers fought in Bosnia, indicating that the anti-Turkish/Islamic spirit in Greece is strong.

On Greece and Israel, I disagree with you. Why should the Greeks back Israel when for the last fifty years, Israel and international Jewry, has identified its interests so closely with those of Turkey? The Jewish lobby in the US never loses an opportunity to promote Turkish interests at the expense of Greece and Cyprus. It is for Israel to realise that sooner or later, its alliance with Turkey will unravel – this is already happening now that Turkey has a pro-Hamas Islamist government.
International Jewry, as you have often pointed out on your site, shows no shame in acting as an apologist for Ottoman barbarism, promoting the extraordinary claim that the Turkish empire was somehow a tolerant, multiethnic enterprise where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in peace, harmony and equality.
A recent example of this Jewish dhimmitude, is Mark Mazower's book: Salonica, City of Ghosts. It is a wretched anti-Greek tirade that describes the Ottoman occupation of Thessaloniki in northern Greece in glowing terms, glorifying the squalid Judeo-Ottoman colonial culture that developed, lamenting the liberation of the city by the Greek army in 1913 and its subsequent re-hellenisation after 500 years of Turkish darkness.
So long as Jews continue to be apologists for Ottoman barbarism and Israel maintains its shameful alliance with the Turkish generals, then Greeks should continue, in a spirit of real-politic, to cultivate the Arabs and back the Palestinians.

to eaglemax

Yes I am Greek and proud to be Greek. The Byzantine Emperors (Apart from Heraclius) did everything they could to defend their lands against Islam, both when the Islamic Invaders where Turkish and Arab. Nicephorus Phocas drove the Turks away from the Empire entirely, and drove the Arabs altheway down to Jerusalem, winning several decisive battles, and had he not been assassinated he would have gone on campaign to take back Jerusalem and sack Mecca+Medina.

demonax the idea of realpolitic is not to hurt the other person, it is to help yourself and Greece has nothing to gain, and everything to lose from backing the Palestinians and Arab causes. Hurting Israel only Hurts Greece, Arabs have always interpreted Greek Support as Greek Servitude and so where in the past only tempted to attack Greeks and Greece more and more, it got us nowere. That is why in the 1990s the we elected Politicians who greatly improved relations with Israel and made Greece a prime destination for Israeli Goods.

I totally agree with you on jewish dhimmitude, off the top of my head I can name several jewish appeasement monkeys who would fit right into a Chirac-Schroeder strategy, and Greeks understand what Islam is about and it's long term goals.

However you are too harsh on the Greek Government, they simply don't want to get into trouble with Britain and France like Serbia did.

"International Jewry..."
-- from a posting above

This is an unacceptable phrase, smacking of Henry Ford, Adolf Hitler, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It will not be tolerated at this website. If you are not a native speaker of English, and ised the phrase unwittingly, without fully comprehending what it evokes -- which is the assumption that will be made for the nonce -- then research on the matter will enlighten you. There is no such thing as "international Jewry" except in the minds of antisemites. Nor, of course, is there a unified careful group which might be called "international Greeks" or "international Chinese" or any other such thing. And this website does not talk about some kind of coherent and articulated "international Muslim conspiracy" but really about what beliefs are reasonable to ascribe to those who claim to adhere to the specific contents of particular canonical texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira.

It is wrong to describe the Greek government's longstanding pro-Arab, anti-Israel policies (not to mention the cultivated anti-American attitudes in the Greek press, despite the efforts of some Greek-American returnees to work against it) as being merely a reaction to Israeli activity on behalf of Turkey. The chronology is the reverse -- the Israeli governemnt began to extend feelers to Turkey after decades of pro-Arab policies in Greece, not before. Nor is there any hint that the Greeks switched to such policies as getting some kind of revenge for some kind of putative alliance between Turkey and Israel that, insofar as it may have existed at all, is quite recent, and quite limited. Successive Greek governments, simply thought the Arabs would be useful allies, useful and very very rich allies. It has been largely a policy based on economic considerations, and not indifference to the fate of Israel (for that matter, indifference to what Musli control of the Holy Land would mean for all Christian Believers). In this respect, Greece was no better or worse, in its shallow calculations, than most of the countries of Europe. Aside from the individuals in every country who have been direclty bought with Araab money, or the local businesses that are given to understand that if they want contracts with Arab countries they would work on behalf of the Arab political agenda, a sitatuion which is hardly limited to Greece, there was always a failure in Greece to understand that the treatment Greeks received from Muslim Turks was intimately connected to, because based on the same Islamic tenets, the relentless Arab Muslim siege of Isrrael. The same kind of failures of various dhimmi communities in the Ottoman Empire to make common cause, continued even after the breakup of that Empire. Latin Catholics did not help Eastern Catholics, Protestants did not care about Maronites, Maronites did not care about Greek Orthodox, none of the Christian sects cared about the Jews, the Jews did not care about the treatment of Christians, and all of them were the victims, over many centuries, of Muslim contempt, as well as economic, social, and political oppression. Read "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam" by Bat Ye'or to see how the various groups of dhimmis could never unite, never work together. Each tried to make its own deal, for its own good, with the Muslim masters. The result was disaster. One can see it now, as all the loyal work done for the Arab Muslim cause by those islamochristians among the "Palestinians" has not by one whit lessened their problems with the Muslim Arabs -- they have been reduced in numbers and influence, and are trying desperately to flee both Gaza and the West Bank. Look at what is happening to the non-Arab, but Arabic-speaking Christains in Iraq. The only thing saving the Maronites in Lebanon is their numbers, including their numbers abroad, where Lebanese Christians here and there still have influence that they use -- but always, to less effect as the steady islamization of Lebanon, that refuge for Middle Eastern Christians, continues. In Syria, the only thing saving the Christians from much greater persecution is the despotic rule of the Alawite military caste, that has its own reasons to fear, and to suppress, those "real Muslims."

The pro-Arab policies of successive Greek governments were not a means of getting back at a then non-existent Israeli-Turkish alliance, but undertaken for reasons of economic calculation -- in other words, for the same short-sighted and deplorable reasons that explain the pro-Arab policies of most European countries (not to mention their failure to investigate the nature of Islam, and therefore question the wisdom, of the immigration policies in place).

One may forgetthat the original object of Israel's attempt to reach beyond the Arabs and to find Muslim allies was centered not on Turkey, but on Iran under the Shah. The policy made some sense, and certainly did some good for both Israeli and Iranian interests, rightly understood. But the Shah fell, and seeking for a substitute, Israel looked to Turkey, and the Turkish military looked to Israel, especially as it was worried about Iraq, worried about Syria (and conflict over the waters of the Euphrates), and the Arabs as the traditional object of Turkosh scorn (for what do Westerners hear first at Turksih dinner parties but "we are not Arabs, remember; we can't stand them" -- the same deliberate act of distancing that Iranians of the ancien regime used to perform). And these efforts might have succeeded -- they were given a boost by Israel's visible help after the Istanbul earthquake -- had not Erdogan come to power, and with him the Islamic attitudes that essentially doom any rapprochement with Israel, or for that matter, with any Infidel state. The Greek government, and the Greek media, need to rethink entirely their failure to comprehend Islam, and the nature of the relentless siege against Israel, and their swallowing of Arab propaganda and betting the store on a policy of appeaseement of the Arabs. It has gotten them nothing (of course, a few individuals may be making out quite well with Arab money, which is a different thing). A failure to comprehend the treatment of the Greeks under Turkish rule, as not being an ethnic conflict but one rooted in the tetnets of Islam, and in figuring out these are the same tenets that explain the inability of the Arabs ever to accept the Infidel state of Israel on anything other than a temporary basis, does damage to Infidel comprehension, not only in Greece, or the Balkans, but also elsewhee in the E.U.

The endless war of Islam against everything that is not-Islam, whether that war uses the instruments of terrorism, or combat (qital), or the "wealth" weapon, or "pen, speech," or the weapons of Da'wa and demographic conquest, has to be understood, and all of its victims, not only this one or that one, with a kind of selective sympathy, need to be recognized, and supported.

I am really fed up with people blaming Greece and Cyprus all the time for being victims of Turks the only reason Greece is voting for Turkey to get in EU is becasue the USA and UK put pressure on Greece My parents where forced out of there homes by the Turks in Cyprus. And in my opinion when the West say's we should negociate with the turks who stole our homes how can we negociate with somebody whole stole your home and wont let you return? why does the UK and USA punish the victims and reward the turks? for example The west made Greek Cypriots look bad in the media when they voted No to reunification annan plan but did the newspapers say why Greeks voted NO they just made it look like greeks where to blame and did not want
peace with the thieve Turks.

Blair who is a turk lover says that the sanctions on north cyprus should be lifted and that Turkey should join the EU even if there is no solution to the cyprus Problem Bush also says the sanctions in North Cyprus should be lifted

Also it was the US who gave Turkey the green light to attack Cyprus. you should look at your own Goverments who are Turk lovers and anti justice and stop goning on about how greece wants turkey in EU I have very little sympathy for the west with its muslim problem I mean why does the west Support muslims in yugoslvia and Cyprus when it comes to killing Orthodox christians? when Muslims stole kosovo and bosnia the west said to serbs Give muslims there rights and when turks kicked greeks out of there homes in north cyprus The west said to greeks give muslims there rights well when muslims try to take over the west i will say same thing to the West give muslims there rights lol

and becasue the West hates orthodox christians more then it hates muslims for that reason the muslims will take over the west

Is Greece still anti-Israeli?

That is nonsense, Greece and Armenia are the only two cuntries intensifying efforts to make very strong military and economic ties to Israel, and for Greek public opinion just come to Greece and be pleasantly surprised Hugh.

Hugh Greece suffered a lot more from the military Junta and it's policies then Israel ever did.

Yes it is true the Greek Media has some bias against Israel, stemming from the fact that the Military Junta killed reporters who made anti-Junta statements, however despite that the Greek Media beats the French, or British, or Italian, or even the American Media easily on who is fairer to Israel.

Another thing Hugh just go to Greece and talk to people and see if you are right about Greece being anti-Israeli.

Greeks are sympathetic to Israel, which is why even the most dhimmified politicians there are have been seeking strong ties both military and economic to Israel.

One last thing here are just a few Israeli Appeasement monkeys you should look into, and why they are appeasement monkeys. Now I am not saying all Israelis are like this, I know that most Israelis understand the situation they and the world are in.

Shimon Peres-Caving into Turkey's every wish for him to forsake his morality in favor of Armenian Genocide Denial.

Netanyahu-Imprisoning a young woman for making a poster depicting Mohhamad as a Pig despite Israel's laws protecting Free Speech (Hey isn't Netanyahu suppose to be the conservative?)

Silvan Shalom-Same as Shimon Peres only add in an acute case of the allowing Hamas to Campaign in East Jerusalem Syndrome.

NicephorusPhocas -

"...Support as Greek Servitude and so where in the past only tempted to attack Greeks and..."

Surely you mean "...and so were in the past..." the imperfect past of the verb 'to be' as opposed to the Interrogative Pronoun 'where' that you actually used. I have noticed a lot of people slipping in that wretched 'h' recently.

Nit-pickers of the world unite :>)

(Wat Tyler, indeed. Should be Which Tyler?)

What do you expect? English is not my first language, and I only use it talking to tourists and on the internet.

"Hugh just go to Greece and talk to people and see if you are right about Greece being anti-Israeli..."
-- from a posting above

The entire discussion -- or my part -- is about the policies adopted by the Greek government, that, whether pro-Arab or strangely supportive of Turkey's admission to the E.U., shows a failure to understand the need both for 1) every threatened Infidel country or people to take a sympathetic interest in every other threatened Infidel country or people and 2) not to try to make temporary gain (as with Arab money, or possible short-term economic gains, as some apparently think may result from Turkish admission to the E.U.

I don't need to talk to "people in Greece" because I wrote nothing about what people in Greece may or may not think. The policy of successive governments, their shallow calculations that in the end will do Greece itself great harm, as well as the rest of the Western world, was the subject at hand.

Where is wily Odysseus when you need him?

NicephorusPhocas -

Not your first language!

I withdraw all criticism then. You are very good in English. I thought from your writing that it was your first language and you were just being careless. Please accept my apologies.

The 'were/where' choice of usage even defeats many native English speakers, I have noticed.

It is simple to remember that 'where' (with the 'h') goes with the other Interrogative Pronouns - who, what, why, when. Therefore, without the 'h' ('were') must be the imperfect past of the verb 'to be' - as in 'we were', 'they were' or 'you(pl.) were'. Easy.

This is a bit rambling, but it's 5am here in London:

I accept the reprimand regarding International Jewry. I thought it was an acceptable term to describe the Jewish diaspora worldwide and did not necessarily associate it with anti-semitism. No offense meant.
On the more substantive issue of Greece's historic hostility to Israel, I do not accept that Greece turned its back on the Jewish state because of 'shallow calculations'.
While it is true that Greece, with the largest merchant marine in the world, has done well out of ferrying Arab oil all over the world in Onassian supertankers, and that one of the aims of PM Andreas Papandreou's pro-Arab policies in the 1980s was to attract Arab investment to Greece, the real inspiration for Greece's pro-Arab tendencies has been diplomatic, has been the need to find allies against Turkey, those who colluded with its invasion of Cyprus in 1974 (namely, Israel, the US and the UK) and who subsequently backed an enhanced neo-Ottoman role for Turkey in the region, posing a threat to Greece in Thrace and the Aegean.
That Turkey has developed into a neo-Ottoman menace is a direct result of US, Israeli and UK complicity with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. (Nor should anyone underestimate the inspiration the Turkish invasion of Cyprus had on Muslim Albanians and Bosnians in the Balkans. They saw it as a reassertion of Ottoman authority which they could emulate).
I accept that since the Islamic putsch in Iran, the Israelis began to cultivate the Turks more avidly as they sought a non-Arab ally in the region, but I don't accept that prior to 1979 the Israelis and the Turks were strangers, nor do I accept that the alliance that has developed since then is 'limited' – it is economic, military, diplomatic and deep.
It is only natural, given the depth of the Turco-Israeli alliance, that Greece should have continued to cultivate the Arabs to prevent Turkey playing the Islamic solidarity card and garnering support for its disgusting policies in Cyprus.

Thus, those countries that have done more than any other to support Turkey's neo-Ottoman aggression against Greece and Cyprus, and in the process given encouragement to Muslims in the Balkans, are Israel, the US and the UK.
Recently, Israelis (and Britons) have been flocking to Turkish-occupied Cyprus, 'buying' expropriated Greek land and investing in illegal tourist enterprises. Again, why should Greece show any sympathy to Israel when that country is doing everything it can to support Turkey's ambition to become a regional superpower, at the expense of Greece?
On Greek anti-Americanism, while it has abated in recent years – Turkish anti-Americanism is far more profound, virulent and deep-seated than it ever was in Greece – it still exists and, again, is related to the US's misguided support for Turkey's neo-Ottoman pretensions.
Rather than berating Greece for being anti-American and anti-Israeli, you should be berating Israel and the US for being pro-Turkish or pro-Ottoman.
Finally, you are right to suggest that Greeks have developed a tendency to see their history as an ethnic conflict with Turks rather than a conflict of civilisations, between Islam and the West. Greeks have forgotten that before the Turks arrived in Anatolia in 1071, there had been four centuries of conflict with the Arabs, who brought devastation to Greek Christian civilisations in Egypt, Syria and Palestine and terrorised other Greek strongholds in the Mediterranean.
Islamic fascism is, therefore, historically and contemporaneously, a threat to Greece; but since, I believe, the likeliest and most dangerous purveyor of that threat in the coming years will be Turkey – as it gradually renounces the false secular identity it adopted in 1923 and rediscovers its true, fanatical Islamic self – then what the hell are the Americans and the Israelis up to giving their unconditional support to one of the countries most likely to pose a serious danger to them – to all of us in the West – in the very near future?

"That Turkey has developed into a neo-Ottoman menace is a direct result of US, Israeli and UK complicity with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974."
-- from a posting above

As an analysis of why Turkey is a menace, this fails. Turkey is a menace because Kemalism -- defined here as the systematic series of measures first undertaken in the 1920s by Kemal Ataturk, and continued by his successors though not with the same cunning or relentlessness, to limit the political and social influence of Islam -- did not take, did not go deep enough, did not uproot, much less supplant, Islam among 3/4 of the Turkish population. Turkey is a menace because Turkey remains overwhelmingly Muslim, and even its secular stratum has, with few exceptions, dared to study the treatment of the non-Muslims, whether communities of Christians (Greeks, Armenians, others), or Jews, in Anatolia, and the Ottoman-controlled parts of North Africa and the Middle East, nor the ravaging of Serbian and other societies in Ottoman-controlled parts of southern and eastern Europe.

The invasion of Cyprus was not opposed by Great Britain and the United States, for the obvious reason that I have discussed many times here: during the Cold War, Islam was seen as a bulwark against Communism, and that was all. And Turkey was seen (whether it was the "Kemalism" of the Turkish army or the ordinarily overlooked Islam to which most Turks remained committed) as an important ally. Turks had fought in Korea. Airbases and listening posts, built and staffed by Americans, were on Turkish soil. It would not do to try to reverse such an "ally" -- or so thought enough people in Washington and London who were, and remain, false "realists" about Islam and about Turkey. But your comment about Israel being involved strikes me as part of a conspiracy theory that is of a piece with the phrase you now take back. Where is the evidence for the charge? And just what could Israel, still reeling from the near-defeat of the 1973 War, have done in 1974 to prevent the Turkish invasion of Cyprus? Or are you one of those people who thinks that the all-powerful Israelis pull the strings of marionettes in Washington and London? If they were, and are, so all-powerful, they certainly are not showing many results as all of their so-called allies have spent the last 30 years distancing themselves, bullying Israel to make absurd concessions (just look at the Camp David Accords, in which Israel gave up so much that was tangible, and important to its security, and got, in return, as was perfectly predictable, nothing from Egypt but promises, all of them broken).

I can berate all kinds of countries. Why can't I berate the United States for not being sufficiently aware of the nature of Islam, and the Israelis for the same (so that they continue to practice a politics of appeasement that will get them nowhere), and also berate the Greek government for the decades of its entirely unjustified appeasement of the Arabs, and its recent policy of dropping all opposition to Turkey's admission to the E.U. I can attack all at the same time.

Why can't you?

Sorry but I am tired of all the whining about how antisemetic greeks are. Sure Greece traditionally supported palestine just like Israel supported Turkey. Both need friends in a hostile environment. Sure the Greeks are getting nothing out of their friendship, but at least their leadership doesnt deny the holocaust to apease its friend. Perez, however is an Armenian holocaust denier. No greek leader has ever stooped this low. Not even uber ass kisser Papandreou.

I am tired of hearing about Anti Semitism while Jews have hated Greeks since ancient times. I have heard people on this site use the term "hellenized Jew" in a derogatory way. Can you imagine if anyone here tried insulting a greek by calling him a jewish greek. The hypocritical uproar would be deafening. Much the same way people that deny the holocaust must go to jail while Israeli Prime Ministers deny other holocausts.

I am proud to be Greek. We have gone through genocide,ethnic cleansing, and expulsion from our homeland this century. European powers not only did nothing to prevent this, but France and Italy even helped the enemy. In greece the cowards that run the country don't even use the word genocide to describe what happened to ensure the Turks remain happy. But we also recognize the holocaust of others like the Jews and Armenians. Greeks always hold themselves to higher standards. Yet when a Greek talks about the suffering they did at the hands of Turks we are met by rolling eyes by so called liberal minded people. Even worse for serbs. The only people to go through a genocide and be blamed as starting it.

Yet we here about the holocaust everyday. I have even read that Greeks were to blame for the Jewish deportations in Salonkia during WWII what a bunch of shit. Sorry but we don't dwell on our past as much as people accuse us of. In ancient times we made up the majority of people in the Eastern Mediteranean and now we are only 11 million in Greece and Cyprus. I read Dennis Prager use statistics like this to prove how much Jews have suffered. But sorry the numbers are even more staggering looking at how many Greeks are missing from today population.

There are a lot of people on this site who are of Greek descent it is so obvious from the comments they make and most of them are pro Israel. Stop calling us Anti Semites when it seems that there are a lot of Anti hellenites. Anti Orthodox, Anti Serb, Anti Slav people on this site who apparently hate Islam but support it in every conflict unless its the States or Israel involved.

I am not sure if the posting above is directed at me. If it is, it is misdirected for several reasons. Not least is that, in criticising the mistakes of many governments in their failure to identify Islam as the problem, and in their willingness, as so many governments in Europe apparently are, to overlook both the nature of Islam, and the certain result of the admission of Turkey to the E.U., no one at Jihad Watch has been gunning for Greece; on the contrary. The piece above was put up by Robert Spencer because a memoir, touching in its details, about the fate of the Pontic Greeks, was written by someone whose general outlook seemed to show to Spencer that she had not derived the right conclusions from that ordeal, had not interpreted the meaning correctly.

Any charge that either Robert Spencer or I has it in for "Greeks" or "Greece" is absurd. If you send him your email, I think he may provide more detail on the book, and on his reasons for posting the piece.

Surely you don't think that the coverage of either Turkey, or of Greece, at this website shows some kind of bias against the latter, do you? Why don't you google a bit -- "Greece" or "Greek government" or "Turkey" and "Jihad Watch" and either of our names -- and see what you come up with.

If, however, your remarks were not addressed to me, or to Spencer, then simply ignore the paragraph above.

Cet animal est tres mechant.
Si on l'attaque, il se defend.

Sorry Hugh it wasnt aimed at you. I have read several times by posters that Greeks are the most anti semetic people. I believe there are dhimmis in all European countries. Just there seems to be a focus on Eastern Europe of late. I went off a bit, little pissed today. Reading about Slobodan Milosevic and how the US is going to recognize Kosovo. Just the thought of people wondering why Greeks are dhimmis along with other Eastern Christians. It seems if we don't behave that way the US or Britain is going to wave its big stick. I dont blame people for being pro Islam when the alternative is being bombed by NATO. Damned if you do damned if you don't. Sorry it was a bit of a rant like this. Just really tired today. I could of taken the time to articulate my point a lot better.

pissedoffcanadian . . . where to start? I agree with much of your thesis. Shimon Peres has kissed ass to the Turks--and I think you're right on the denial of the Armenian Holocaust. I would add Bernard Lewis to this list as well. So what? They don't represent me as Jew. Kissing the Turks ass after their earthquake in terms of assistance hasn't exactly reaped dividends for Israel anyway. As Turkey moves away from their secular interlude, relations b/w Jews, Israelils and Turks suffer and will only worsen.

As a student of history, you should also appreciate the many common themes b/w the history of the Greeks and the Jews. Yesterday and today. Proud remnants with rich histories, facing common threats. My point, though, about Taki is spot on. I like his writing, but I do believe hate and/or dislike of another persons' faith or race can color one's otherwise sound perception of reality. For Greeks to see the Turks as nationalistic opponents, distinct from the sad plight of the Palestinians--as opposed to another face of the same Jihadist coin in a literal sense is every bit as dumb as Israelis trying to curry favor in Ankara, sucking up to Turks with disgusting comments downplaying the Armenian genocide . . . as if those picture of Turks posing before headless corpses mean nothing. In such a case, both the Greeks and the Jews share another common trait; the ability to act stupidly. For the menace of Hamas and the growing Islamist menace of Anakra are, in point of fact, the same menace, aren't they?

Of equal disgust to me, Shimon Peres has also downplayed French Muslim hatred of Jews. He's an opportunistic politician. Some even exist in the US and Athens as well. He has a failing, dwindling constiuency in Israel and his current claim to fame is nanotechnology will revolutionize the middle east. He's a socialist dunce. I had no knowledge of the gruesome Turkish treatment of the greeks and Armenians untill a few years ago. This is not easy information to find. I am completely disgusted by Israel's belief and reliance on Turkey for anything. I am also disgusted by Bernard Lewis' downplaying of the Armenian holocaust by the Turks. His comments are shameful and smack of cowardice. I am completely in favor of reproachment between Athens and Jerusalem. Both sides can and do forget who their true friends are--and more important--whom their mortal enemies are. I see no difference b/w the Islamist threat to Greece vis-a-vis Turkey and the Islamist threat to Israel vis-a-vis Hamas. Just different names and geography and the timing of the submission to Allah from a historical standpoing and a brief flirtation with forced secularization in the Turk's case. It's just Jihad by a different name. With Hamas it's out in the open. With Turkey it's creeping out in a schizophrenic fashion. From their point of view, the Greeks and Jews are just non-believers, different rungs on the Kaffir ladder.

pissedoffcanadian . . . finally to look at who suffered most . . . the Jews or Greeks is kind of like two amputees duking it out with their stumps. Sorry, it's late and I can think of no other metaphor. Many ancient Greek Jews loved greatly and fought bravely during WW II for Greece against the Germans . . . both Sephardic and Romaniot as well. I have never found a single reputable source that in no way condemed the treatment of the Jews by the Greeks in WWII. Not a single one. Far from it from my review of the literature. In fact, the treatment of the Greeks by the Nazis was especially reprehensible and savage--even by Nazi standards. I meant to harm to Greeks in my posts. I just tried to illustrate a point how the hatred of Jews can color one's perception, and used Taki and Buchanan as stalking horses for this argument, but I could have used hatred of gays, racism against blacks to make a similar point. The greeks have suffered through the years at the hands of the Turks--and the 'resolution' of Cypress by the West--instead of standing up to the Turks, defending the Greeks was a huge mistake. Enough. Can't we all get along. I love Athenian Chicken and lemon soup, maybe you should try some kreplach soup as well?

Yes, I think that the Turkish invasion of Cyprus boosted Turkish self-confidence, destroyed any ambitions Greece had to become a Mediterranean power, and gave rise to neo-Ottoman ambitions - a cause of the Balkan wars in the 1990s and a vital factor in assessing Turkey's increasing audacity in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
This audacity may suit the US, UK and Israel now, but I maintain that, sooner rather than later, Turkey will redefine itself as an Islamic power and then the real trouble will start.
As for Turkey and Israel, you are determined to categorise me as an anti-semite but I'm not so I won't let you. My objection to Israel has nothing to do with anti-semitism\Zionism or the 'plight' of the Palestinians, but with its unholy alliance with Turkey and neo-Ottomanism and the way the Jewish diaspora has been mobilised in service of this alliance, which I regard as an expression of dhimmitude.

I object to the Israel-Turkey alliance because it is immoral, has no future and, in the long-term war between the West and Islam, is counterproductive.

As for Israel's involvement in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, there is no doubt that above and beyond cold war considerations – the need to prevent the Soviets expanding into the Eastern Mediterranean – the US was anxious to destroy Cyprus for the satisfaction of Israel.
1. Israel wanted rid of President Makarios in Cyprus. In order to counteract longstanding US and UK plans to hand over part or all of Cyprus to the Turks, Makarios was forced to look for support among the non-aligned movement - which, unfortunately, included, Arabs and other unsavoury types. A non-aligned, pro-Arab Cyprus was uncomfortably close to Israel.
2. Makarios opposed the junta in Greece. The junta in Greece was a good ally of Israel, having provided in 1967, though not in '73, the Israelis with crucial assistance, the use of airfields in Crete, etc. The US (and Israel) would much rather the Greek junta and the Turkish generals were in charge in Cyprus, than leave the island to the Cypriots themselves.
Direct Israeli military assistance to Turkey in 1974 is harder to prove, though Victor Ostrovsky, former mossad agent, refers to 'rumors of Israeli aid in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus'.
Ostrovsky also points to the long-standing Turkey-Israel alliance, tracing it back to 1958, when 'a secret agreement was reached between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes calling for Israeli-Turkish collaboration against Middle East radicalism and “Soviet influence.”'
Ostrovsky adds that Israel continues 'to regard Turkey as an ally sent from heaven'.
Of course, Cyprus was a victim of the cold war - but the cold war ended in 1989 - and Cyprus is still under occupation and day-by-day, with the collusion of the US, UK and Israel, the neo-Ottomans are consolidating their control of the island. Thus, it is no longer possible to write Cyprus off as a casualty of the cold war.
We are now able to see that the Turkish invasion of Cyprus was part and parcel of the 1,500 year old Jihadist campaign against Western civilisation.
Invasion, ethnic cleansing, massacre, rape, looting, the targeting of priests and other symbols of Christianity – churches, monasteries, cemeteries – these have nothing to do with the cold war, but are typical of the tactics the Islamic hordes have used against non-believers for centuries.
Now that we can see Cyprus as a victim of Islamic Jihad and not the cold war, then my condemnation of the Israelis and Americans becomes more understandable, I hope. Why are the Americans and Israelis going out of their way to facilitate the Ottoman takeover of Cyprus and allow, more generally, the revival of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Balkans?
The Arabs are hopeless degenerates – a few Bin Ladens and Al Zarqawis are nothing – but the Turks are a different proposition. They are the real threat to the West and have been for a thousand years.
Cypriots are Greeks and Christians and have been at the forefront of creating and defending Western civilisation and their cause deserves to be supported by anti-Jihadists everywhere.

"the US was anxious to destroy Cyprus for the satisfaction of Israel."
-- from a posting above

This is absurd. The Turks invaded Cyprus without the encouragement of anyone. This conspiratorial notion requires not one but two sets of marionettes. One set is the American government, which you tell us "was anxious to destroy Cypryus for the satisfaction of Israel." So the American government was putty in Israeli hands, in your view. Despite the fact that at that very time, with the air full of American grand plans for bullying Israel -- have you forgotten the Rogers Plan and all the other American-generated schemes to keep up steady pressure on Israel, and to show the Arabs how favorable we were to them, how "even-handed" -- you see Israel as behind it. While we are at it, tell us all the other things Israel has been behind, even if you are now willing, for the nonce, to abjure use of that telling phrase "international Jewry." Is Israel behind the Putin government? Behind the E.U.'s enlargement? Behind the American inattention to the nature and history of Islam? If Israel is running things, it is certainly not doing a very good job of doing much, over the past 40 years, to help itself out.

Only someone who has been infected with a certani mental pathology, even if he believes or declares himself free of the disease, can make a statement such as that quoted above.

And your idea also suggests that Turkey cannot make decisions on its own. You appear to think that the Turks were lured into invading Cyprus, by the Americans, who in turn were merely doing "Israel's" bidding. Are you completely nuts, or only partly so?

Look back at the history of EOKA, of Makarios, of the Turks, of the Turkish participation in the Korean War, of the ill-fated CENTO (Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, alonog with Great Britian and the United States). Look at all of it.

Are you prepared to say that Turkish behavior can only be explained by the Americans? Hasn't Turkey again and again demonstrated that it will do things that its government or military wish to do, whatever the Americans may think or think they think? A recent example was given in March 2003, when the Turkish government refused to allow a fourth American division to use American bases (established during the Cold War) to enter Iraq from the north.

Tell me: do you think that it is Israel that is pushing the American government to promote, as it has been but I hope will soon reconsider and stop, the entry of Turkey to the E.U.?

I just am curious as to how distorted your understanding of men, events, and recent history can possibly be, no doubt because of a condition which you deny, a denial which is contradicted, in my view, by the evidence you yourself present.

demonax, sadly, this is not the first whiff of anti-semitism from a Cypriot. Nor is it the first time that I've heard of Israel somehow promoting or using the US to support a Turkish takeover of Cyprus. In your mind, there is a distinction b/w the treatment of the Jews by the Arabs and the treatment of the Greeks by the Turks. Your worldview allows you to only go so far. There is an impediment to go farther, isn't there? One can smell it. Your views on 'international jewry' are one-and-the-same as your Turks! Thats is the irony, for both you and the Turks view the US as puppets of Israel and the Jews. Even if you can objectively see the treatment of the Greeks vis-a-vis the Turks as a form of dhimma--you crouch it in exceptional terms, international jewry and the like. With a sarcastic grin, I would point out that Greeks and Jews and Greeks on Cypress have more to fear from international Islam than Jewry. I'm curious though, why does Greece support the entry of Turkey into the EU in the first place. Could it be a zionist plot?

Maria, et al . . . haven't the posts above just proved my sad point--that hatred of Jews can trump common sense, politics, even the danger posed by the huns at the gate. With so much vilification of the Jews, perhaps the haters have a point, eh Maria? Interesting the the hatred of the Turks, and by proxy of Islam, is displaced. In this case, the zeal of the above posters is not focused on the Turks or the menace of Islam towards the Greeks in Greece or Cypress . . . no, the hatred is displaced on Jewish Historians, Jewish politicians. Not the perpetrators of the crime, but those who foolishly seek favor in Ankara. It's as if the person I hate is not the person who killed my son. No, he's ok, but that Jew who's against the death penalty . . . he's the bad guy . . . not the psycho who killed my kid. As for the desecration of the Chruches throughout the world. As for the the killing of Greeks in Turkey and Cypress. As for the murder of so many hundreds and hundreds of thousasnds of Armenians who have been butchered at the hands of Islamists, I might ask the above posters how many Jews were involved in these crimes. Ironic isn't it . . . the Turkish menace and the Palestinian menace . . . both increasingly Islamized . . . morph into a single green menace . . . where the only nation is submission. But the worlds oldest hate trumps all.

I don't say that the Israelis were behind the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, but I do maintain that Turkey's occupation/partition of the island was a satisfactory outcome for Israel - in the short term. You've had me down as an anti-semite from the start and you're determined to prove it at the expense of missing the real target of my 'mental pathology' , which is Turkey.
Certainly, the Americans from the Acheson plan onwards, wanted to partition Cyprus. When they realised that the main obstacle to achieving this was Makarios, then they colluded with the junta in Athens and paramilitaries in Cyprus, to bring him down by other means – assassination and, after this failed, by coup.
America's role in bringing down Makarios, and then, at the very least, not dissenting from the Turkish invasion, is well documented in Christopher Hitchens' book, Cyprus: A hostage to history.
Anyway, my main point about the Turkish invasion does not concern Israel or the US, but Turkey; the boost the military victory provided to its self-perception, the revival it generated for its regional ambitions, the inspiration it provided to Muslims in the Balkans.
My complaint isn't with the US and Israel backing (or not, as you see it) the Turks in 1974, but backing them NOW. I repeat, this policy is immoral, counterproductive and potentially disastrous.
I am not against Israel, Jews, America; I am against Islam and its most dangerous and fanatical proponent, Turkey. Kemalist ultra-nationalist secularism is a blip in Turkish history; the secularist part is being eroded and it won't be long before we have a hyper-Turkish nationalist, Islamic fundamentalist basketcase on our hands.
As for why, Greece backs Turkey in the EU, the logic is that to join the club, Turkey will have to change so much, become a normal country, that it will no longer pose a threat to Greece. This is wishful thinking. Turkey far from becoming more European is in fact returning to its Islamic roots. Indeed, for the last few months, Greek-Turkish relations have been decidedly chilly, so that within the EU it is the UK, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Poland and Finland, which have been at the forefront of pushing the Turkish case.
As for the 'international jewry' jibe, that was a genuine misunderstanding of the implications of the terms and I withdrew it. Perhaps, in England, we're not as sensitive to these issues as we should be. Nevertheless, I do not withdraw my charge that it is shameful that the Jewish diaspora in the US has been at the forefront in promoting Turkey's causes – against the Armenian genocide, against Greece and Cyprus, and so on. Israel and the Jewish diaspora are better than this.

To the poster above:

Your logic is this. The Turkish army, without either alerting the Americans, or anyone else, suddenly invades Cyprus. Yet some here would have it that it is not Turkey that should be blamed, but rather the United States, and not even the United States, but rather, Israel that is this mighty secret empire pulling all the strings. You further backdate the recent, temporary, and very limited understandings reached between the Israeli and the Turkish military, to make it seem that back in 1974 there was such an alliance, that it was solid, that it was very much in Israel's interest that Cyprus be controlled by Turkey, and that it was some kind of Israeli influence -- presumably based on the vulgar idea that because Henry Kissinger is Jewish he must, therefore, have been doing Israel's bidding. Crude, and historically inaccurate, and highly selective -- tellingly selective.

The Turks did not inform the Americans. It is true that Henry Kissinger is Jewish. It is not true that he has done Israel's bidding and, over all, his steady pressure on Israel to pull back in the Sinai, and the horrific pressure to prevent Sharon from destroying Egypt's Third Army, was Kissinger's doing. He may be thought by those who have not been paying attention to be Israel's "friend" but he did a great deal of damage to Israel, possibly because his kind of Metternichian realpolitik was of the shallow kind, the kind that did not understand that while the Communist threat had to be dealt with, it was on its way out, because Communism itself had failed to deliver, and that the Islamic threat is permanent, because what it claims to deliver is never really present, in this world, to be examined and weighed. Islam as a belief-system cannot really "fail" though it is possible to demonstrate, to some of the more intelligent Believers the connection between their own political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures, the failures of Muslim peoples and polities, as arising out of the tenets, the attitudes, the atmospherics of Islam itself.

You have reduced your charges to: well, Israel benefited from the Turkish invasion. Quite a retreat, whether or not it reflects your real views after having them challenged, or is merely rhetorical in nature. That's quite a difference, isn't it? Furthermore, what is the evidence, and not merely some rumors, some stories, some feelings or suspicions you have, that Israel both benefited from, and ardently welcomed, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus? And if Israel, as you claim, "benefited" from this, is there any other country you would like to add?

Last I looked, Turkey was still an entirely unchastened member, in good standing, of NATO. Israel is not a member of NATO. But Italy, Germany, Spain, and many other countries are. Why should they not be on the receiving end of your indignation and anger? Are these countries not much more formally allied, through NATO, with Turkey than Israel has ever been? And what would be their excuse, now that the Cold War has been over for fifteen years, to continue to countenance an alliance in which they are required to come to Turkey's defense?

You make far too much of the attempt, limited in time and certainly in scope, of Israel, surrounded by a Muslim Arab sea, to find some way to appeal to some Muslim country to be its, if not friend, at least not enemy. That was true when the Shah was around -- Iran was the Muslim country (and one with tens of thousands of Jews) that Israel had an informal alliance with, against a mutual enemy -- the Arabs. Since the fall of the Shah, long after the Turks had invaded Cyprus by the way, Israel tried to show friendliness to Turkey and to have some kind of alliance. Its excuse was that it otherwise would be throttled, as it may yet be, by an Islamic world. What is the excuse for the inattention to Turkey's behavior, and the re-islamization of Turkey, by the member states of NATO? Is Israel's attempt to find some common ground with Turkey less understandable than the behavior of a succession of Greek governments that have done nothing to prevent, and recently have appeared to support, the admission of Turkey to the E.U., only it appears out of considerations of some hopoed-for economic gain, and possibly a better settlement in Cyprus?

I have not seen you mention the role of all those NATO members. Your indigination is selective. When indignation is a little too selective, and when it is accompanied by other tell-tale signs (I find it hard to beleive that any educated person could conceivably not now the significance of the phrase "international Jewry" and if the kind of people you associate with in England think that phrase is acceptable, you are associating with the wrong kind of people).

Think about those members of NATO, and tell us if you have any quarrel with them. For that matter, you might start with a country whose record of managing affairs in Cyprus is not among its most glowing pages (this is not a brief for EOKA, nor of course for Makarios): that is, the government of Great Britain.

You started off this thread by condemning Greek dhimmitude and citing Greece's traditional ties with the Arabs and poor relations with Israel as an expression of this.
To demonstrate why Greeks are so prone to suspicion of Israel I drew attention to Israel's alliance with Turkey – Greece (and the West's enemy) for a thousand years – and pointed out the paradox that while Israel claims that it is at the mercy of Muslim hordes, it is in fact backing the Ottomans – the worst kind of Muslim horde – in Cyprus and elsewhere. I cannot accept that Israel's alliance with the Ottomans is limited. The alliance is deep and multifaceted. It is strategic, military, economic and diplomatic, and even extends to deploying the Jewish lobby in the US to deny the Armenian genocide. As Yosi Sarid, member of the Knesset's foreign affairs and defence committee, remarked: 'Jews who lost 6 million of their people in the horror of the Nazi genocide should be the last to join in denying the existence of another genocide . There is a hardly a single outrage this [Israeli] government is not willing to commit under the pretence of a narrow-minded national interest, which is bound to prove counter-productive.'
Here, here.
If your proposition was, why are Greeks so hostile to Great Britain, then I would have happily obliged you with a litany of complaints Greeks have in this department – particularly over Cyprus. Again, if your proposition was, why are Greeks hostile to NATO, to the EU, the UN, to Bulgaria, Albania, Germany, and so on, then I would have presented you with the appropriate indignation. But what you wanted to know was why Greeks appear to be anti-Israel. For the sake of argument, if you were to compile a list of countries Greeks feel hostility towards, I would suggest that Israel would come pretty low down.
Your thinking about the war criminal Kissinger, his Jewishness and so on, smacks of paranoia and I will ignore it, suffice it to say that you appear more prone to conspiracy theories than me.
I conclude from all this, that despite your stated belief – which I generally share – that there is a long-term global Jihad being waged out there, it seems, from what you say, that this is only partly true, because for the moment, while it suits Israel, the worst Jihadist fanatics in history – the Turks – can be courted and counted as 'friends' as a counterweight to the Arabs.
In my book, the Arabs and the Turks are one and the same. In the Israeli book – and in your book too, it seems – the world can, after all, be divided into good Muslims and bad Muslims. I think I have caught you – and Israel – in a flagrant act of dhimmitude.

First of all when we understand the big picture of Greek and Armenian history we come closer to the understanding of Ottoman Turkish behaviour. It will never change. Given the chance, or if History repeats itself and Russian military abandons the Armenian Turkish border Turky will wipe Armenia of the face of the map. Hard to grasp this but its true. Serbia under the spotlight of western powers is loosing historical lands which they lay righteous claims to. My point is that as a nation Greece and Armenia can take any stance to ensure stability and peace. This does not give the reason to forget our past, neither to stop pressuring Turkey for our claims and to stop educating our children further of our History and Turkish bullying. The diasporan Armenians and Greeks should not stop the pressure as the pshycological sickness the turks inflicted on us
will soon turn on them only if we keep up our work.

demonax, I'll give it a last try. Until 911, I knew nothing about Greek suffering at the hands of the Turks, knew nearly nothing about Armenian genocide in Turkey, knew about Cypress--but viewed it as a nationalistic struggle, pitting two rivals against one another, as opposied to what it was . . . a jihadist struggle against Greek Christians. 911 changed my viewpoints, opening my mind.

I am outraged that anybody would deny, belittle, whatever the Armenian, Greek holocaust at the hands of the Turks. I detest any politician in any country--the US or Turkey who would do this. I think that Jews who 'take sides' on this issue--or any issue in favor of Turkey are self-delusional and just plain wrong.

Wrongs can and will be corrected. I see nothing but a worsening of Turkish-Israeli relations. The 'relations' exist and are deep as you claim--but also shallow. The people of Turkey are obviously going Islamist, being whipped up in a religious frenzy. The success of the new Turkish antisemetic film, anti-American film. The Turk's recognition of Hamas. It doesn't take a genius to realize the relationship b/w Turkey and Tel Aviv will go the way of Tel Aviv and Tehran . . . that didn't end pretty either.

In the final analysis, Greek, Jew, Buddhist, HIndhu are all connected by the same threat. Whether they like one another is not the point. The are united by a common menace. The evil that was perpetrated on the Greeks and Armenians cannot be whitewashed. As a proud member of international jewry, I'll be the first one to admit this. demonax at least you have the grace to mention Yossi Sarid and millions like him. Jewry like Grecians are not monolithic in their viewpoints.

"Yosi Sarid, member of the Knesset's foreign affairs and defence committee, remarked: 'Jews who lost 6 million of their people in the horror of the Nazi genocide should be the last to join in denying the existence of another genocide . There is a hardly a single outrage this [Israeli] government is not willing to commit under the pretence of a narrow-minded national interest, which is bound to prove counter-productive.'"
-- from a posting above

Quoting this incredible and disgusting statement by Yossi Sarid cuts no ice with any sane human being. Indeed, quoting Yossi Sarid on anything should cut no ice.

I have tried to look beyond the evidence of your pathological condition (and don't give me this "but I'm only criticising Israel" stuff -- it won't work), and have given you every chance to consider the specific facts, about foreign policy, about the attitudes, and behavior, of the governments of the Western world, just before, during, and after the invasion of Cyprus. You are irreducibly wedded to the absurd view that the whole thing is somehow to be linked to Israel, and your persistence in this confirms, beyond any doubt, my original suspicions.

Too much incomprehension of the general menace, too much focus on a particular aspect (Turkey, or as you say, "Ottomans" quite inaccurately), too much special pleading (tell me, are you as interested in the fate of Hindus in Bangladesh, or Buddhists in southern Thailand, as one who comes to this site should be, and are you as in interested in the fate of Israel as well -- or is your interest and sympathy confined only to Cyprus?).

In any case, this dialogue of -- not the deaf, because I can hear perfectly, not only what you say, but what the underhum reveals, but of someone who has determined he will not examine the evidence, and he will focus on one party he has made up his mind to blame, no matter how non-existent the evidence for that proposition, or how extensive the evidence for counter-propositions that he refuses to consider, because they do not conform to his worldview.

What you accuse me of, by the way -- of dividing the world between good Muslims (Turks) and bad Muslims (Arabs) is crazy. I focus on Islam, and only on Islam, and those who, whether they come from California or Casablanca or Cannes or Cairo, believe or at least offer their loyalty to, the tenets of Islam, the umma al-islamiyya.

I did not ask why "Greeks" are hostile to Great Britain or not hostile. I asked why you, a certain Mr. X, finds it appropriate to spend all your time blaming Israel as if it calls the shots in NATO, of which it is not even a member, or in Washington, where it has been pushed around by successive administrations for years (and the "two-state solution" is one more idiotic failure to comprehend the nature of the Jihad campaign against it). Your comments about Kissinger are equally un-apropos, failing to recognize my charge that you appear to assume that he, being Jewish, therefore must have mishandled the Cyprus situation out of some tribal loyalty. That loyalty is something Kissinger never exhibited. Henry Kissinger has always been true to only one thing -- Henry Kissinger.

I don't think you've understood this website, or in particula my thousands of postings, especially those on Turkey -- for god's sake, just google "Turkey" and "Posted by Hugh" and "Jihad Watch" or click on the Articles and read what has been written about Turkey by me and by Robert Spencer. Certainly it would be pointless for you to comment further.

So don't bother. And I'll make it easy for you.

Okay I think this got a bit out of hand and I played a big part in this. Lets just end this with biorabbi's last comment. I think we all have a common enemy and its not us or you its Islam. I guess when Israel or the US government sides with Turkey it hurts to folds. One they are held at higher standards because we know they should know better. And two the US is the most important country in the world. It matters what they think.

And Biorabbi made a good point Greeks and Jews are not monolithic in their views. In fact I read Dennis Prager once a week and he has a good article describing the different Jews. And he points out the most prominent Jews today in the media are mostly liberal and non religious and they mostly dont support Israel. There are dhimmis in both cultures.

I have to admit some greeks get carried away with being disappointed with Israel and the US that they become anti Israeli and anti american to the point they can see how bad the Muslime world is. All I know is I drive by a synagogue quite often and I feel good and fine inside when I do. But everytime I drive by a mosque I want to barf. I too get mad at the US and Israel for the above mentioned grievances, but I can honestly say I know who my enemy is.

Sorry for misreading your article Hugh, I thought that what you where saying is that Greeks in general are Dhimmis which just isn't true. You didn't ban demonax though right?

demonax you know that the death of General Tito the true anti-Dhimmi of the Balkans is what caused the uprising of the Albanians and Bosnians, in their view General Tito was the only person capable of stopping them, and looking back you can say that they were correct.

If anyone thinks for one minute that this site scants the treatment of Greeks under Ottoman rule, I urge that person to google "Turkey" and "Posted by Hugh" and "Jihad Watch" or to click on the articles above. I further urge that person to click on the name "Vryonis" or "Speros Vryonis" and find out where the work of this scholar has been mentioned repeatedly and favorably; or google "Bernard Lewis" and "Hugh Fitzgerald" and see if you find anything on Lewis and Turkey that might cause you to re-think.

We are not going to permit conspiracy-theorists who are unsympathetic to the victim of the Lesser Jihad, Israel, use this website to promote those theories. We are going to permit those who see the connection between the various victims of Islamic belief, and those who have over 1350 years acted on those beliefs, and who may be aware that the various victims seldom made common cause, because each was trying to curry favor with, and not to anger, their Muslim masters. But that attitude was fatal to their separate, and unrecognized joint, causes.

Possibly, at this moment, some who might once have failed to recognize the sources of the mistreatment of various communities of dhimmis, each believing it was, here or there, or at that period or that other period, the one that suffered the most, will fail to do so no longer.

That would be good. That would be an improvement. That is part of the intent at this website: to efface or erase or reduce to ridiculousness the various quarrels that separate assorted Infidels, to keep them from making their separate cases, indifferent to each other. Divide and conquer -- that should be done, yes, but not in the camp of Infidels. Only in the camp of Believers in Islam.

There were some very strong anti-Dhimmi organizations of Armenians in the 1970s and 80s. Unfortunately, like many other militant groups fighting for Christians against Islam they bought into Marxism. Since the US, Israel, and NATO were defending the Turks, this is understandable even if short-sighted.

One such organization was the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)which had as main objective the recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. It also sought the creation of an independent Armenia from the ethnic Armenian homeland of eastern Anatolia (in accordance with the Treaty of Sevres which never came into effect after Atatürk's fight against what was considered as a "diktat"), ostensibly to be joined with the existing Republic of Armenia. The group also operated under the names The Orly Group and the 3 October Organization.

The ASALA was founded in 1975 by Hagop Tarakchian and Hagop Hagopian and led by Hagopian while Turkey was in political turmoil. Its aim was to force the Turkish government to acknowledge its role in the Armenian genocide, compensate the survivors or their families and cede territory in the north of the country for an independent Armenian state to be unified with the existing Armenian SSR.

The group's activities began with bombing and assassination attacks on Turkish citizens and diplomats.The first bombing was an attack on the World Council of Churches (WCC) office in Beirut. Their first acknowledged killing was the assassination of the Turkish diplomat, Oktay Cerit, in Beirut on February 16, 1976. The group's eight point manifesto was published in 1981.

Actually, the first murder related to ASALA is at 27 January 1973, US-Santa Barbara , shooting of Turkish General Consul Mehmet Baydar. To avoid trouble with US authorities, ASALA never acknowledged the case. At 22 October 1975, Turkish ambassador to Austria Danis Tunaligil is killed. 31 Turkish diplomats and 5 relatives were killed by bombs or ambushes between 1975 and 2005 by ASALA.

The group's most effective attack was on August 7, 1982 when nine people were killed and seventy wounded in an bombing at Ankara airport. Another bombing on July 15, 1983 at Orly Airport killed eight and wounded over fifty. The attack precipitated a split in the group over tactics, between the Nationalists (ASALA-Militant) and the 'Popular Movement' (ASALA-Mouvement Révolutionnaire).

In the 1980's the group received aid from Syria and Libya in the 1980s and possibly from France. It forged links to the PFLP since Israel was strongly pro-Turkish. With the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 the group lost much of its organization and support.

Hagop Hagopian was assassinated in his Athens home on April 25, 1988 by a Turkish agent,(Tarakchian died of cancer in 1980) and the group fell into inactivity and internal schisms, associating more closely with the Kurdish PKK. The ASALA was effectively wiped out by a series of attacks by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT), some carried out by Abdullah Çatlı, leader of the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, which worked in cooperation with the MIT and with Gladio "stay-behind" NATO secret paramilitary organizations.

Perhaps it is time that ASALA be revived.

Hugh I totally agree with you on your comments above. I am a Canadian born Greek, and am fiercely proud of my heritage and ancestry.

However I have spoken many times with my brother on this exact topic and how it angers me on both sides that Israel always takes a pro Turkish stance and that Greece (and even worse the Greek Orthodox Church) is always seen taking a pro Arab and Palestinian stance as payback. When are we going to wake up as people who should know better than anyone else in this world what kind of menace Islam is to the fibre, and structure of the great societies we have created in the west.

It bothers me when I see countries and people who are aware of their past treatment and somehow find a way to traumatize each other, instead of extending an olive branch in order to deal with ones true enemy.

We seem to be aware of our past as some rightly mentioned earlier that Greeks were violently opposed to the bombing of Yugoslavia. But always seem to miss the mark with Christians and Jews alike. But this phenomena also extends to the super powers of the world, the United States of America and Russia. They are the ones who first and foremost need to recognize the damge done on a greater scale by continuing to cozy up with whoever pisses the other one off.

Lets face it Pakistan is a stone age country with nukes as a result of India's friendship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The U.S. needs to come up with a serious plan to cool its relations with states like Turkey and Saudia Arabia,Russia needs to smarten up and stop dealing with Iran for a start.

Once the Super Powers show some direction and cohesion the rest would be easy.

Niv

I am reading this posting i am Greek Cypriot greek and huges seems to me Pro turkish and seems to Be trying to justify the invsaion on cyprus by tureky in 1974 by critising makarios and EOKA i have not heard Huges mention the TMT a turkish terrorist group and how they killed greeks and dentash who was leader of the TMT is now the president of occupied North cyprus why is dentash responsible for killing thousands of greeks in cyprus not in the hague? but they put innocent people like milosevic in the hague who tried to defend his coutnry from muslims why is fat dentash being supported by the West?

i have also read huges comments on kemal ataturk and that says it all to me anyone who admires kemal ataturk hates greeks and armenians as it was ataturk who was responsible for the genocide of armenians and greeks

"i have also read huges comments on kemal ataturk and that says it all to me anyone who admires kemal ataturk hates greeks and armenians as it was ataturk who was responsible for the genocide of armenians and greeks...
-- from a posting above

So Ataturk alone was responsible for the murder of Armenians and Greeks? Until he came along, everything was hunky-dory?

You fail to understand that I have not been endorsing Ataturk, but rather his decision, taken in the 1920s, when he finally came to power, and as a Turkish nationalist, to systematically limit the power of Islam. In a sense his reasons for doing so do not matter; what matters is that he tried, and in many ways succeeded, to create a class of Turks who were less influenced by, less mentally subject to, Islam. He did create another, replacement cult --the cult of the Turk, and everyone had to be a "Turk" and to "talk Turkish" etc. But his replacement of Arabic script and commissioning a Turkish-language Qur'an, his monitoring of the mosques and vetting of all the khutbas, his giving women the right to vote and discouraging, as state policy, the wearing of the hijab, his encouragement of secular education and discouragement of preferment, in the government or the army, of those who exhibited signs of being too religious (i.e. taking their Islam too seriously), all this entitles us to praise this aspect of his policy, what I call "Kemalism," which is a different thing from endorsing, in all of his works and days, Kemal Ataturk. One can also not condemn, even if one would normally do so, the Cult of Ataturk that developed, because one realizes that for millions of primitive people (and primitive people are to be found everywhere), used to a Cult of Muhammad, it was necessary to replace it with the Cult of Ataturk.

By the way, in the case brought a few years ago in Paris by Armenians wishing to press for the naming of the mass murders of Armenians as genocide, among the proofs offered among the proof offered of the Armenian genocide, the Armenian side called, as one of its witnesses as having both recognized, and deplored, the mistreatment (the murder) of the Armenians was none other than -- Kemal Pasha, Ataturk.

Read Dadrian.

Huges
Ataturk and young turks where the ones responsible for armenian and Greek genocide in symra Ataturk's soldiers killed and raped the inhabitants, and emptied the furnishings into waiting trucks. This was the finale of the Armenian Genocide of the First World War when close to two million Armenian men, women and children had in 1915-1916 been dispatched to their deaths by the Young Turks from all points in Turkey. Ataturk, the new leader of Turkey who had said 'Turkey for the Turks.'

if ataturk was so secular why he killed thousands of greeks and armenians and why he force them out why did ataturk destroy churches you cannot say you are agiants armenian and greek genocide and then glorify ataturk

Okay, here we go loop-de-loo, here we go loop-de-lah....all on a Saturday night.

Guri you are right Ataturk was not what nostalgic people make him out to be, but remember that he was not in power in World War One, Enver Pasha was, had Mustafa Kemal rather then Enver Pasha been in charge the Armenian Genocide would not have happened, no doubt he would have had thousands killed in order to consolidate his tyrannical rule, but he probably would not have killed nearly 3 million christians.

Denver a Jemal Pasha where also deeply involved in the Armenian Genocide.

NicephorusPhocas

yes your right it was not only ataturk who was responsible for armenian and greek genocide denver pasha was also involved but i have dont think it would have made a difference who was in power in world war 1 i still think 3 million christians would have been killed under ataturk as ataturk did have thousands of greeks and armenians killed and ordered his army to torch symra

but unfortunalty people like huges refuse to see it how can people recognise the armenian and greek genocide when the media and ignorant people make ataturk a hero its the same as making hitler a hero armenians and greeks get offended i mean everyone says how ataturk was secular but how could he be when he killed so many christians and he was a muslim to whats the reason people like ataturk?

The poster above keeps confusing the policies of Ataturk intended for his own good and sufficient reasons to prevent the collapse of Turkey, to limit the power of Islam, with the killings, in some cases atrocities, committed by Turks (and Kurds) against Armenians and Greeks. Why should one condemn the policy of trying to limit the power of Islam, if it was Islam in the first place that caused those Turks, Kurds, and Arabs (with the Armenian refugees in the Syrian desert) to distrust, hate, and sometimes wish to kill, and kill, the Christians among whom they lived?

Perhaps you think that one should not recognize this achievement in Turkey, the only state where a large number of people have been given the opportunity to be, or to become, secular, and about one-quarter of the population has managed to do so over the past 80 years (even as the non-Muslim population has dramatically declined), and should take no notice of this systematic effort.

Do you think there is something genetically carried by the Turks that made them kill Armenians or conduct the massacre at Smyrna? Or do you realize that behind it all was not something called "Turkishness" but rather the belief-system of Islam, its effect (not on all Believers, but on a sufficient number) in creating the attitudes, and atmospherics, in which such things take place?

If you agree that the impulse lay in Islam, and is best understood as a murderous response to the perception that Infidels were not sufficiently submissive, which was an offense against Nature, then you should not find discussion, or even praise, of Ataturk's attempt to reduce the role of Islam. You should join in that praise, even as you may express alarm over how hard it has been to maintain the secular program, how shaky it appears in comparison to the permanence of Islam.

Stop. Think.

I just want to say that I think their is a lot of truth in almost all the comments above, but a few key misunderstandings.

First on basic Antisemitism in Greece, or Greek and/or Greek Orthodox culture, and Antihellinism in Israel, and Jewish cullture/religion:

I am really suprised at the ignorance of reports of Antisemtism in Greek culture that refer to language embedded in the historic and religious literature, but which fail to realize that there is equally powerful and non politically correct language in within Judiac writings.

Everytime we celebrate Hunukkah (which has become a major holiday of American Jews) we repeat racist garbage against Greeks. I have heard euducated modern Jews whipped during Hunukkah with just as much poison in their minds against Greeks as one could imagine might occur in the minds of superstitious ignorant Medieval Europeans against Jews following a passion play!

The irony is that Greeks and Jews don't realize they are responding to a Wahhabi-like impulse (the Maccabees have more in common with the Wahhabis than any other movement) againts the influece of Greek culture AMONG Jews. The same is true in the language against Jews, or more accurately elements of Judiasm within Christianity in Christian Patristic writings.

Before there was what I would call "competative Dhimmitude" betweent hese two cultures (and others) within Islam there was an analogous situation between these two ancient cultures within the Roman Empire. Before that there was interJudiac conflict during the time of post Alexander period about how much Hellenizing was acceptable. There is no question that Jews today are MORE Hellized that those the Maccabees killed (and they reviled and killed mostly Jews whom they called "Greeks").

In modern times the relationship of Greece and Greeks and Israel and Jews has remained competative!

These countries came about for the same reasons. They were diasporas. Greeks shouddl understand they critique Israel for the exact same mechanism that created modern Greece.

There were Islamic AND secular genocides against the Greeks and the response PROMOTEFD by the outside world, great powers, NGO's of their day, was to create an ethically pure Greek state. The same EXACT thing happned with Israel.

Hugh,
Additional points.

1) I suggest this statement of yorus is in conflict with the facts:The poster above keeps confusing the policies of Ataturk intended for his own good and sufficient reasons to prevent the collapse of Turkey, to limit the power of Islam, with the killings, in some cases atrocities, committed by Turks (and Kurds) against Armenians and Greeks. Why should one condemn the policy of trying to limit the power of Islam, if it was Islam in the first place that caused those Turks, Kurds, and Arabs (with the Armenian refugees in the Syrian desert) to distrust, hate, and sometimes wish to kill, and kill, the Christians among whom they lived?

There were pre-Young Turk attrocites against non Turks. The Devserme certainly ranks as genocidal on Biblical levels. But the young Turks very secularism itslef mandated a racist and genocideal attack on non Turkish and non Jewish inhabitents of Turkey. It is simply a fact of history that this occured.

2) It is also a matter of historical record that Israel is, after Turkey, the main denier of this genocide agians the Christians of Turkey. This has nothing to do with the idea it would dilute the importance or uniqueness of the Holocaust, but derived from political support of Ankara by Jerusalem and is a prfoundly immoral act.

3) You went after a non American poster for using the term "International Jewry."

Yes this is often a loaded term and a term used by antisemites. But not always. There is a coordinated organized international lobbying of Jewish organizations. One simply cannot deny their existance an ymore than their are coordinated lobbying organizations of diaspora Greeks.

Here are the questions. Are the efforts of international Hellic Lobby opposed to Israel? Answer: No. Are the efforts of the International Jewish Lobby opposed to Greece? Yes.

Take a look at groups like "The Washington Institute for Near East Policy." This is a central part of the Jewish Lobby in the US. Everything they write about Greece is negative, and they side with Turkey on every occassion. Are Greeks wrong not to see a trend there? Is it antisemtic to point it out?

FrankLev good point about Hannukah. I checked out the Washington Institute's website I found the article "What Binds Ankara and Jerusalem". An absolutely disgusting piece of revisionism.

If you read up on "Kitos War" in the second century Jews revolted against Rome and commited one of the largest genocides in history against the Greeks of Cyprus and in Cyrenaica. I don't hold any grudges its so long ago. But the oldest hatred in the world is not anti-semitism but anti-hellenism. I agree the Jews today are mostly a secular and very productive people.

After reading the above article I really believe that hatred of Greeks is really strong in some Jewish people. I don't understand how a country such as Turkey that can commit genocide against its people can have its history whitewashed and presented as a victim of discrimination.

"The Washington Institute for Near East Policy." This is a central part of the Jewish Lobby in the US."
-- from a posting above

What? Are you crazy? What "Jewish Lobby"? There are a hundred separate, and often conflicing, Jewish groups when it comes to foreign policy. As for the importance you give to this "Washington Insitute," it is grossly exaggerated.

Your failure to understand that over 50 years, the close ties that developed, because of the Cold War, between the armed forces of Turkey and the United States, contributed heavily to a view of Turkey, a contributor of troops to the Korean War, a supplier of bases and listening-posts that were important in monitoring and checking Soviet intentions. You keep forgetting that Turkey was made a member of NATO, that Turkey has contacts and supporters all over the Western world, and the "Washington Institute" is hardly the most important (if supporter it is).

Ahd while Turkey appeared to be -- and was -- stoutly anti-Soviet for so long (it was not, as so many said, because "Islam is a bulwark against Communism" but rather because Russia was a historic enemy).

And a succession of Greek governments did not do Greece any good. There were the leftists, who alternated with the rightists (the colonels and Communist sympathizers deserving each getting, for different reasons, a deservedly bad press in the United States).

When someone attributes an exaggerated importance to some particular Jewish group, starts talking about one undifferntiated, monolithic "Jewish lobby," and proceeds to give evidence that he believes that this is the reason for a pro-Turkish bent in Western capitals (for it exists in Great Britain and Germany as well -- or are you going to tell me that the "Jewish lobby" in both those countries is running things?), I have little difficulty in seeing that something unstated, and quite possibly unrecognized by the bearer, is present.

Turkey was an ally. It is a member of NATO. Take up your grievances not with tiny Israel (or that mighty "Jewish lobby") if you must, but only once you have thoroughly investigated the sources for the attitudes of almost all the NATO countries, the Cold-War assumptions, the behavior of successive Greek governments and their political orientation, and last but not least, the failure of recent Greek governments to express, much less to join, an articulate coalition of those who are threatened by the Jihad, the impulse for which is what explains not only the devshirme, and the centuries of Ottoman rule, but also the massacres of non-Muslims in the past century.

And when you paint a picture of Greece getting a bad press in Israel, while there has been, you claim, such a lack of antipathy toward Israel in official Greek circles, you are being disingenuous. The Greek press, and government officials, have been mostly unsympathetic to Israel's attempt to fend off a relentless Jihad, and until recently, Arab propaganedists have had a field day.

That pro-Arab policy, and sentiment in Greece (which was not always endorsed by everyone) may be coming to an end, because as Islam expands, as Turkey becomes more and not less Muslim in its outlook, and as the demands for mosques in Greece alarms people who may begin to see the problem not as Turkey but as Muslim Turkey, and then as Islam, one suspects changes in views, including the view that a pro-Arab policy in the Lesser Jihad (that whose victim is Israel) I

The phrase "international Jewry" and the world view it hints at, even if the phrase itself becomes something like the "powerful Jewish lobby" -- again, the idea of a monolith, of secret power secretly deployed, is all right out of the Protocols and should be deplored. You should deplore it. One hopes you will come to do so.

Canadian,

Take a look at this:
http://www.gsusignal.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/12/15/43a20cf3ca227

"the often pedophilic, murderous ways of the Greeks"

I heard have heard Rabbis use even more fantastic hate speech! If one looks at any report on Antisemitism the exact same type of slurs used against Jews are cited as proof of Antisemitism in certain cultures example, ironically, Greece.

Greeks and Jews have much more in common than they realize - good and bad. So do Israel and Modern Greece. More people, Greeks, Jews and others, ought to realize it.

"The Washington Institute for Near East Policy." This is a central part of the Jewish Lobby in the US."
-- from a posting above

What? Are you crazy? What "Jewish Lobby"? There are a hundred separate, and often conflicing, Jewish groups when it comes to foreign policy. As for the importance you give to this "Washington Insitute," it is grossly exaggerated.

Hugh, please don't take it personally, but now I know you don't know Washington.

Is your point that the "Washington Institute for Near East Policy" is not part of the Jewish Lobby? If that is your point, you are 100% wrong since of course it was created BY AIPAC, its funding came directly from the backers of AIPAC, its personel came from there and people within the Jewish American Lobby openly fundraise for it on the basis of it being the think tank of the lobby in Washington.

Or is your point the more eyepopping asertion there is no "Jewish Lobby?" I have news for you, there is a Jewish Lobby, a Greek Lobby, an Armenian Lobby in Washington. Serious news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washignton Post, the Washington Times, the Hill, and Roll Call, routinely refer to these lobbies with those exact appelations by name. Serious political quarterlies, journals, periodicals, academic works, conferences by serious think tanks etc all refer to these ethnic lobbies.

To imply what everyone knows to be a fact is a conspiracy theory -- or worse -- is disingenous or uninformed.

even if the phrase itself becomes something like the "powerful Jewish lobby"

That is off the deep end. This phrase is used by Jewish groups in the US, including ones to which I belong! Are we the only ones who can use these terms?

Now Hugh are you going to say the Jewish Lobby has not become the MAIN denier of the Armenain Genocide in the US after Ankara itself? Because I have to tell you that FACT and its moral implications are an issue within the Jewish American community.

Hugh in the end I think you and I agree about 90% of the time. But a lot of your commentary on this thread is biased.

Plese read about the history of the Young Turks. Wo was the main functionary associated with the Armenian genocide and what was his ethnic background? Do you think that should be explored here?

On Turkey being an ally in the Cold War, Greece was an ally in both the war against Germany and lost blood by the bucket in the cold war -- an amounts Turkey did not. Turks died in Korea? OK, so did Greeks - more per capita. And Greeks died in Greece fighting communism, including land grabs from cummunists in Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania to north, which the US emphasised as such and then forgot about.

And when you paint a picture of Greece getting a bad press in Israel, while there has been, you claim, such a lack of antipathy toward Israel in official Greek circles, you are being disingenuous. The Greek press, and government officials, have been mostly unsympathetic to Israel's attempt to fend off a relentless Jihad, and until recently, Arab propaganedists have had a field day.

Again, half true, half false. The Isreali press has been so uncritical of Turkey over the decades that it just not a valid excercise to point fingers in either direction.

Hugh and FrankLev,
Chill! There is a semantical difference here that is causing you both to read something that's simply not there.

Hugh, I don't believe FrankLev is expressing any anti-Semitism by his use of these polically correct terms. His point is correct: the Israeli government (particularly the Foriegn Ministry) has been grossly immoral in its acceptance of Turkish historical revisionism and should be held accountable.

FrankLev, The terms you used are at best outdated and at worst innacurate and misused, for example "International Jewry" was coined by the Antisemite Henry Ford in the early 1920s.

A more accurate term would be the Pro-Israeli Lobby which consists of as many non-Jews as Jews. Also, as blind as the Pro-Israel Lobby has been in relation to Greece and Armenia, it can't hold a candle to the International Muslim Lobby financed by billions of Arab oil dollars.

What is an outrage is how the Israeli Lobby and Muslim Lobby are too often together in their support of the Turks.

Provoslavni,

None of the terms I used are "outdated" or misused.
1) Are you saying that the term Greek lobby hasn't been used recently by mainstream American press? Of course it has. I have yet to hear or see the term "pro-Greek lobby," and closely follow academic writing on ethnic lobbies.

"Greek lobby", "Greek Diaspora Lobby" "Jewish Lobby" etc are used in highly politically correct contexts all the time.

2) Are you implying is used the term "international Jewry"? Let's be precise, this is what I wrote:

3) You went after a non American poster for using the term "International Jewry."
Yes this is often a loaded term and a term used by antisemites. But not always. There is a coordinated organized international lobbying of Jewish organizations. One simply cannot deny their existance an ymore than their are coordinated lobbying organizations of diaspora Greeks.

It is pretty clear exactly what I am writing (even with the typos). I am saying that a non American is applying a term that is often a loaded term and a term used by antisemitest but maybe entirely innocent. Why? From reading the Greek press in English the term "International Hellenism" is a term in frequent use to apply to the Greek diaspora. Rightly or wrongly Greeks seem to use this term to describe their own diaspora, so it could be entirely innocent in this context.

Other than that explanation in which I Aalso agreed with Hugh it is very often a term of antisemites I have used no terms one can't find in academia or mainstream press, here in the states or indeed in Israel! Please tell me since you used plural what terms I used!?

Let's get back to the main issues without all these sometimes true and sometmes false sensitivities.

Is Hugh correct in his assertion that Turkish attacks on Christian civilians are based in Islam? He is half correct and half wrong.

Does Hugh have an understanding of the interplay between Jews and Greeks or Jews and Armenians? I say these are peoples who have a huge amount in common. They have ahyuge amount in common as cultures per se, diaspora cultrues and the modern states, especioally Greece and Israel are much more alike than either would admit.
They also have historic animosity that polutes their views of each other. Hugh has emphasized critiqueing the Greek state's view toward Israel. It is valid critique -- except it is a two way street and a lot of that has been left out.

FrankLev,
Pardon the typo, I meant "politically incorrect".

My quibble was with the term "Jewish Lobby" since the Israel Lobby (AIPAC, WINEP et al) are not just Jewish but also have many non-Jews. I only wish the Grrek and Armenian Lobbies were as well-organized since the Turkish lobby has been so effective and the Muslim lobby (or lobbies) are powerful and well-financed.

By the way, I'm with you as relates to Ataturk. He may not have been a religious Muslim but he certainly was infected by every Muslim Turkish bigotry and violence. The rape of Smyrna is the sole responsibilty of Ataturk and as far as I can see, this brutal fascist dictator is just as guilty of genocide as was Enver Pasha. Even the current borders of Turkey are illegitimate since they are in direct violation of the treaty of Sevres.

Demonax thinks he knows that Israel conspired in and aided and benefited from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. What is the evidence for any of these three claims? I do see that demonax refers to Christopher Hitchens as a source. Was Hitchens your source for the claim of Israel conspiring in and benefiting from that invasion? If so, I tell you that Hitchens is a crook and does not deserve to be believed. You mention that Serbs suffered from the wars of the 1990s. Are you aware that Hitchens still supports the NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo?
Now, I think you owe it to everyone here on DW to cite just what you know specifically about Israeli involvement in the invasion of Cyprus, if anything. The British opportunity for intervention on Cyprus was much greater. The UK still holds about 10% of the island as airbases which enjoy a sovereign status free of local Cypriot intervention. This alone is not proof that they did intervene, but I don't see any specifics in your whole set of messages above as to Israeli involvement. It sounds to me like a Commie big lie with the tone of Nazi Judeophobic paranoia, unless you can supply some reasonable facts and details.

As to the Armenian genocide, one of the Aaronsohn family traveled by train through Anatolia in 1915 or 1916 and saw what was being done to Armenians. This was one of the reasons for the Aaronsohns' forming the Nili underground which supplied information to the British. There was an actual Ottoman/Young Turk plan to get rid of the Jews in Israel in the same way. Prof. A.S. Yahuda wrote about this [including his personal involvement] in his article in the anthology "Israel" ed. A.R. Malachi [or Malakhi](New York: Shulsinger, 1950; in Hebrew). As it was, about 30,000 Jews who were citizens or subjects of states at war with the Ottoman Empire [i.e., Russia, etc.] were expelled from the country. Further, Ambassador Morgenthau [US amb. in Constantinople] provided to the Armenians the help that he could. Whatever the foreign ministry may say, the Israeli academic community has officially recognized the Armenian genocide. For several years, the Aremenian studies Program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has sponsored or co-sponsored yearly commemorations of the Armenian genocide at the university faculty club [Beyt Belgia] on Giv`at Ram.

Demonax might also ask himself why those who are so eager to charge Israel with driving out Arabs in 1948 have little or nothing to say about Greeks expelled from their homes on Cyprus in 1974. He might specifically ask why the EU is more concerned over Arab sufferings, real or imagined, than about the sufferings of Cypriot Greeks.

Provo,
My quibble was with the term "Jewish Lobby" since the Israel Lobby (AIPAC, WINEP et al) are not just Jewish but also have many non-Jews. I only wish the Grrek and Armenian Lobbies were as well-organized since the Turkish lobby

Please do tell me the basis for having qualms with the term "Jewish Lobby" while you seem free to use the terms "Greek Lobby", "Armenian Lobby" and "Turkish Lobby."

This is the exact same type of double-standard that makes people think that false accusations of conispracy theories against the Jews are used to counter any argument/statement.

Since the "Greek Lobby" demonstably has non Greeks, and the "Turkish Lobby" is (quite massively) funded by US arms suppliers, you can't say there is a substantive difference. The only difference seems to be that one can make highly inconsistant accusations against a person using the term "Jewish Lobby."

Since the issue came up in regards to active denial of the Armeian genocide, it is also fruitful to point out that the elements with the Jewish Lobby and/ Pro-Israel Lobby were according to your conditions, the most Jewish-- meaning not just the professional shops in DC, but more so the diaspora groups around the country - specifically the AJC!

Really the main point is would Hugh be comfortable retitling this thread:
Fitzgerald: "Greek, Jewish and Armenian dhimmitude" and or Greek, Israeli and Armenian dhimmitude"?

Do some research. I am damn proud of Israel, but this became quite a shameful issue. It was not just about the actions the Israeli government, but there request of the Jewish Diaspora that the same tack be taken.

Ha'artz "Israel is among the holocaust deniers"
http://web.archive.org/web/20050330060738/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/557973.html

Jpost
http://www.genocidewatch.org/rattlingthecageplayingpoliticswithgenocide21april05.htm

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=291667&sw=armenian+genocide

As far as the broader pro-Israel Lobby outside of the Jewish Lobby, I have yet to read for example any advocacy active pro-Israel Evangelical Christian groups taking up the banner on the genocide denial. Does that mean something worse?! ie shold we say the Jewish portion of the pro-Israel Lobby is most active in denial of the Armenain Genocide?

Do you see where this useless parsing goes?

Again, how is it you feel comfortable attacking use of "Jewish Lobby," (a term used in the Juruseml Post, Ha'aretz, the Jewish media in the US) yet you yourself use the terms Turkish and Greek Lobby?

I recall about ten or twelve years ago the New york Times did a piece on the Greek (or Greek American or Pro-Greece) Lobby meeting with Clinton. The Times pointed out that the meeting was arranged by George Stephanopoulos whom the paper pointed mentioned was Greek, the entire gist was how the Greeks had inordinate infuluece due to Stephanopolous and Greek money. Having been to meetings arranged by Rahm Emmanuel I would have been very pissed off if the Times had made such a crack about him being Jewish and essentially implying he was a Jewish mole in the administration and that the White House was responding to Jewish money!

I do not believe in collective guilt or collective blame, yet the title of the the thread itself is actually a dobule standard.

Hugh if you are reading this -- and this is one long thread -- I think you do good work generally and laud you for it. I fundimetnally disagree with our positions here as wll as your presentation of the history, including Young Turke and Ataturk secularist movemetns in Turkey. They sought to replace one ideology with a hyper nationalist racist one, which is closer to the Ba'athist movement and both are intimately related to Nazism.

huges
if ataturk was so secular why did he kill thousands of greeks and armenians in symra and why he burn churches.

I mean ataturk said he was secular right but in the koran it says to behead the infidels. ataturk had lots of greeks beheaded he burned churches just like the koran instructs muslims to do if anything ataturk was islamic not secuular and following what the koran told him to do behead the infidels

also as for Ataturk making turkey secular thats aslo a other mislead information secular means tolerance of other religions ataturk forced out christians and now Turkey is 99% muslim so how did ataturk make Turkey secular if its 99% muslim where did all the christians go ?

FrankLev,

Greek and Turkish are nationalities. Therefore the Greek lobby supports Greece and the Turkish lobby supports Turkey. A citizen of Israel is an Israeli not a Jew since Israelis may be Christians, Druzes, athiests, or even Muslims. Just as all Israelis are not Jews, not all Jews support Israel. Therefore it is the Israeli lobby that supports Israel, not the Jewish lobby.

Provoslavni,

You are completely wrong and that is why you are resorting to convoluted statements that are not factual.

1) it is refered to as the Jewish Lobby, the Jewish American Lobby and the Pro-Israel Lobby in Jewish Ameircan publicantions, in Jewish American conferences.

B’nai B’rith, AJC and Hadassah consider themselves part of this "Jewish lobby", they themselves use that term as well as other terms. One sees the term used in commentary and dozens of publications. I have a piece by Daniel Pipes using the term.

2) Not all citizens of Greece are ethnic "Greek." Many are Albanian, ethnic Turks, ethnic Pomaks, Jews etc. Greek is an ethicity just as Jewish is. Not all Greeks support Greece. Not all Greeks are citizens of Grece. Millions are not. Indeed Greek is often as much a religious description as a national description. For example in Turkey a Greek is someone who is Greek Orthodox, whether they think of themselves as Greek or not.

In Washington it is rarely called it the Israeli lobby. the terms are Jewish Lobby and Pro-Israel Lobby -- you would know that if you read any literature.

Again you exemplified the reason why people take these sensitivieties as false and as attempts to diverts legitimate critques as prejudicial or consiparacy-minded.

I have a shelf full of serious books and papers within serious political science periodicals by mainstream academics specifically on ethnic lobbying.

"Jewish Lobby" is an accurate, non perjorative applation, indeed it is a self nomination by many Jewish Ameircan groups, and anyone who claims otherwises is ignorant of Washington, and most likly attempting to discount legitimate concerns (as Phil Green said while adressing this very issue "pointless and obfuscatory."

You still embarrased yourself with your use of the term "Greek lobby," which by your definition is prejudicial and innacurate itself.

OY! their is that Antisemitic Ha'artz again using that term "Jewish Lobby"

"A shake-up in the Jewish lobby"
By Avi Beker
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:-_KdOCr6cpIJ:spirit.tau.ac.il/government/downloads/Beker_Haaretz_AIPAC_05.04.05.doc+%22jewish+lobby%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=120

Sharon could use use the term in speeches to AIPAC. Rabin, Peres, Shamir can use it. Leaders if AIPAC, AJC can use it. Commentary Magazine can use it. But when someone else uses it the converstation stop to interject accusations of conspiracy theories and antisemitism? Rubbish.

Again, on the case of the denial of the Armenian Genocide, it was not the "Pro-Israel Lobby" any way -- it was very specifically the Jewish Lobby as the groups that carried the water were organized Jewish groups -- not Envangelical Christian , business or non Jewish supporters of Israel