105 years later, they still refuse to recognize it.
Historians generally mark the beginning of the Armenian Genocide with the arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals by Turkish authorities on April 24, 1915. What followed that fateful date is one of the single greatest tragedies in human history: a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing, mass deportation, and forced starvation that would last for eight years and result in the premature death of over 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians, and a smaller number of Greek and Assyrian minorities.
Despite the inconceivable scale of this massacre, it took nearly 100 years for U.S. Congress to pass a pair of resolutions officially recognizing the Armenian Genocide and the Ottoman Empire’s culpability. And even now, after denying the historical accuracy of this event in a 2015 press release, an Islamist coalition claiming to represent “the largest umbrella group of mainstream Muslim American organizations” has yet to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide on its 105th anniversary.
Headquartered in Chicago, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) is comprised of America’s most influential Muslim special interest groups, many of which are tied to foreign Islamic revivalist movements. This list includes the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim American Society (MAS), American Muslims for Palestine, and 14 other Islamist organizations.
Although these groups claim to pursue civil rights and social justice causes, they continue to pander to Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian regime by refusing to speak out against one of the greatest injustices in modern history.
Writing on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015, USCMO sought to cast aspersions on historical Armenian grievances, suggesting that the jury is still out on the mass killings. Its statement warned that “characterizing the events of 1915 as genocide without proper investigation of these events by independent historians” would fail to produce “a just memory pertaining to these events.”
Yet, it is not a “just memory,” but an accurate one that Armenians have sought after all these years, and there is very little debate among historians regarding the authenticity of Armenian claims.
On October 25, 1914, the Ottoman navy attacked Russian ports on the Black Sea, dealing a painful blow to Moscow trade. In a few months, Russia retaliated by mobilizing its army, and with help from Armenian militias from the Caucasus advanced into present-day northern Turkey.
On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turks responded by rounding up several hundred Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. They were subsequently accused of treason, deported to Ankara, and interned or executed.
Soon after, Istanbul ordered the deportation of 1.3 million Armenians. Considered a national security threat, Armenian deportees were force-marched an average of 700 kilometers to locations in northern Iraq and central Syria.
Western diplomats and missionaries residing in the region at the time documented horrors of murder and rape and spoke about an Ottoman state policy of Armenian extermination.
Even Ottoman sources record 400,000 Armenian deportations, noting that 300,000 of them died of thirst or starvation during the arduous journey. The same sources claim that most Armenians (700,000) fled to the Caucasus or the West, while 100,000 stayed in Turkey.
Conversely, the University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies gives figures far larger than the official Ottoman estimates, asserting that there were over 2.1 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1914, but eight years later only about 387,800 remained.
Nevertheless, American Islamists reject even conservative estimates of Armenians killed, demanding that any formal acknowledgement of the genocide should also “recognize Turkish and Muslim suffering.”
USCMO’s denialist statement produced widespread outrage in 2015, prompting a few of its member organizations to feign indignation and publish tepid and disingenuous responses. For instance, CAIR Chicago was sure to absolve Turkey of any responsibility, blaming “the military coup government of the collapsing Ottoman Empire” for the bloodshed, thereby suggesting that the dissolution of the Sultanate relinquished the successor government of any responsibility.
USCMO would rather pander to Turkey’s expansionist foreign policy agenda than recognize crimes that are more than a century old.
Despite the backlash, USCMO subordinate groups continue to assist Turkish government attempts to distribute denialist propaganda. In November 2018, MAS — the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America — allowed Turkish authorities attending its West Coast convention to distribute books and pamphlets downplaying the atrocities, suggesting that forcible transfers were necessitated by a “life or death struggle” in a time of war and blaming the genocide on “armed actions by the Armenians.”
To be sure, American Islamists are unwilling to upset their foreign benefactor. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acts as a significant source of financial and political support to Islamist movements around the world, offering a safe haven in Turkey to radicals from the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. In return, USCMO leaders are said to treat the Turkish president “like a Sultan.”
“As Americans, we are concerned about alienating a key ally, Turkey, through one-sided declarations that political and religious leaders have made on this subject,” the coalition wrote in 2015. The statement extolled Turkey’s virtues as a model U.S. ally that assumes “a unique regional and global leadership role in ensuring peace and prosperity for all.”
Erdoğan is striving to revive the Ottoman Empire’s geopolitical influence, and part of this strategy requires using American Islamists to advance his priorities. Based in the Chicago area, USCMO secretary general Oussama Jammal is a major figure in Erdoğan’s “domestic political meddling,” and his organization acts as a support and lobbying group for Erdoğan’s anti-American policies among U.S. Muslims.
Previously, Erdoğan has mobilized his American Islamist proxies on the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
For example, during the tragedy’s 2018 anniversary, Turkish Americans demonstrated in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois, countering Armenian demonstrations held on the same day. Erdoğan supporters waved Turkish flags and displayed banners reading “Stop Armenian terrorism.”
These demonstrators included Halil Mutlu and Gunay Evinch, senior members of the Turkish American National Steering Committee, a nationalistic civil society organization openly loyal to Ankara. Representatives from the Diyanet Center of America, Turkey’s state religious authority in the U.S., were also present at the rally to deny Armenian persecution.
USCMO would rather pander to Turkey’s expansionist foreign policy agenda than recognize crimes that are more than a century old. Ultimately, the Islamist position on the Armenian Genocide reveals their duplicity; USCMO member organizations claim to advocate for human rights, justice, and interfaith relations. Yet, in denying the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians, American Islamists expose their supremacist worldview, a dogma that elevates the lives of Muslims above non-believers.
With the 105th anniversary of this atrocity just days ago, it is past time that America’s largest coalition of Muslim nonprofits recognize one of the most horrendous war crimes in human history.
Hesham Shehab is the Chicago Fellow at the Counter-Islamist Grid, an initiative of the Middle East Forum.
OTTER says
This is the problems with Muslims everywhere–they are, or pretend to be completely blind to the both the facts and consequences of their actions. No matter how brutal they are, no matter how well documented their atrocity is, it just does not exist!
I would say we start an international movement called: Give a Mirror to a Muslim. ” Every time, they minimise one of their atrocities, give them a mirror.
Start a hashtag #MirrorsforMuslims.
gravenimage says
Muslims have no problem with having committed genocide against Christians. They just don’t want the “filthy Infidels” to know until it is too late.
Tony Naim says
USCMO is an organization that is spreading lies and deceit. This organization represents Islamic countries and the Islamic faith that practice DHIMMiTUDE in contradiction to what they claim to advocate Human rights. Human rights is anathema to Dhimmitude. Dhimmitude is APARTHEID.
On that basis, USMCO should be sued, exposed, delegitimized and dissolved.
USCMO is a religious form of the KKK. The former is based on religious intolerance and the latter on racial intolerance.
One more point: it is the CHRISTIAN component of Armenians that opened the appetite for blood and murder in the Turks. 200,000 Maronites in Mount Lebanon were also killed by the Turks in the same war.
GreekEmpress says
What galls me is the demand by Muslims for recognition of Turkish and Muslim “suffering” before any acknowledgement can be made of the genocide. Always playing the victims. Sorry, won’t fly. Not now. Not ever.
gravenimage says
Grossly, Muslims both claim that the Armenian Genocide never happened, and that this was actually Armenian violence against Muslim Turks.
Muslims have no shame.
Spiro says
Don’t forget the forced exchange of people between Turkey and Greece
1927???
When greek property was seized burned
Looted and many murdered and now Greece is being told to welcome these people and take care of them
Their eastern islands are under threat
But who cares. After All Turkey is our n a t o alli. (5th column)
I could go on but it makes me to irritated and I’m not even Greek
rubiconcrest says
U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO)’s failure to recognize the Aremenian genocide by is tantamount to Holocaust denial. Thank you Hesham Shehab for bringing this to our attention. This clearly demonstrates that the USCMO is not looking out for the best interests of American citizens, Muslim and non Muslim. I believe organizations that fail to recognize clear genocide should be denied non-profit status. As a part of the Republican platform the organization and members and the organizations and members of those they represent should be should be banned from any lobbying activities in the USA.
gravenimage says
U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations Remains Silent on Armenian Genocide
………………………..
They deny the Armenian Genocide–but if Islam is ever in ascendancy world wide, they will instead crow about it and use it to threaten us.
More:
Nevertheless, American Islamists reject even conservative estimates of Armenians killed, demanding that any formal acknowledgement of the genocide should also “recognize Turkish and Muslim suffering.”
………………………..
Yes–nothing happened, but if it did, then it was the fault of the victims.
In reality, the only “Turkish and Muslim suffering” involved Muslims rousing themselves to slaughter over 1.5 million Christians.
Battle says
Hesham Shehab hits nail on head.
Battle says
Only hypocrites never admit.
Mark Berlinger says
The 20th century’s first full scale ethnic cleansing was committed by The Young Turks. In their highest councils Turkish leaders decided to exterminate every Armenian in the country — all 2,000,000 of them.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but wouldn’t it be outrageous and hip to name a YouTube channel after a group of homicidal maniacs.
gravenimage says
It started with the Ottoman Empire, continued with the Young Turks, and then on into Ataturk’s era. They hated each other and had serious differences, but could all agree on murdering Christians.
dambuster4642 says
Please watch the movie “The Promise”, available on DVD. It is a true and accurate account. I had a close Armenian friend, whose parents survived the Genocide as a young couple. He passed on to me what his parents told him to never forget. He gave me his library of Armenian history books…many of which have the photographs taken of the Genocide…and written accounts of many witnesses.
I would welcome the opportunity to meet ANYONE who is a denier of the genocide, face to face….well, that is all I will say for now….
Jack Reynolds says
Trust me …. it will not be long before Turkey is booted out of NATO and has to deal with PUTIN.
John Mwansa says
I hope so but can’t trust the European political leaders. Europeans owe Pope Benedict XVI a huge debt of gratitude for arguing against Turkey becoming a member of the European Union, could have been a different story by now. Invertebrate Europeans should wake up and smell the coffee, Islam’s ugly head is rearing at the door
gravenimage says
You mean like Putin selling arms to Turkey? The idea that Russia is always tough on Islam is not, sadly, borne out.
John Besharian says
My grandparents on my father’s side came here shortly after the turn of the last century to escape the “Tender Mercies” of the Ottoman Empire. They acclimated, acculturated, had and raised three children who, in turn provided them with three grandchildren. Grandpa died when my dad was 11 and my grandmother taught citizenship to emigrants for over 50 years walking a mile each way 5 days a week. She never taught any of us to hate the sons and/or grandsons of those who committed those atrocities as it wasn’t their fault what their elders had done. All that changed for me on September 11, 2001. If you want to know what life would be like living in a Caliphate and/or under Sharia, ask an Armenian.
gravenimage says
Thank you,.John. Glad your grandparents escaped.
Boghos L. Artinian MD says
By deniying the Armenian genocide Muslim countries are actually implying that it was the Muslim religion that Turkey exploited to do the heinous act, not the Turks as a secular nation. And the recognition therefore will hurt Islam as a peaceful religion.
Boghos L. Artinian MD says
Genocides often begin as conspiracy against the principle of ‘Natural Selection’, whereby a human race that is the ‘fittest’ in a peaceful environment becomes the ‘poorest’ in a hostile environment that is fomented by a genocidal race, that in turn becomes the ‘fittest’ in the environment it creates, and it survives instead of the victimized race.