Ian Mcewan Quotes

The Armenian-Turkish enmity was vicious to the point that each people tried to kill and exterminate the other—men women and children. The atrocities committed by the Armenians were unfortunately matched by the Turks in what is now referred to as the “Armenian Genocide”—see {51838} The armed combatants amongst Turks and Armenians were in the minority yet each side slaughtered all members of the other whenever they could. The hatred still prevails – see {588211}. And Turks and Armenians both still accuse the other of atrocities of the period and appear in denial about their own violence.

Armenian dissidents in Turkey formed military units like Hinchak which during the First World War, attacked unarmed Turkish Muslim Villages behind the front lines. The object of the Armenians was to have turkey lose the war and obtain their own ethnic state afterwards. The atrocities committed by the Armenians were unfortunately matched by the Turks in what is now referred to as the “Armenian Genocide”. The hatred still prevails – see {588211}.

He was a German physician and explorer who had converted to Islam. Nonetheless, he was caught up in the Arab uprising of the Madhists, who had conquered much African territory.

The Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the PLO were preparing a coordinated attack on Israel. After statements like this, the Israeli’s preempted the attack, routed the Egyptian Airforce and Army, and then defeated the other three. The Arab “War of Liberation” resulted in the Arabs losing more with Israel tripling it’s control of area. The quotation however cast a pall over attempts thereafter to create a Palestinian State as in effect the PLO had announced a policy of a Holocaust—the extermination of the Israelis. The dispute over land was not for the Jewish state a land negotiation amenable to compromise and give and take, but instead was an existential threat to Israel whereby any compromise might result in the death of the entire population. As the ultimate intention of the PLO had been revealed.

The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.

The two groups of Christian minorities in Turkey then were the Greeks and the Armenians. The discrimination against those minorities had been so great that many sought independence for their areas and accepted and gave assistance to Russia and other “enemies” of Turkey. The Turks, instead of distinguishing between those who aided the enemy and those that did not, assumed that all Armenians and Greeks were guilty and began a program of ethnic cleansing and organized murder of the Christians—the Armenians in particular. Unlike Germany, which accepted its guilt for the Holocaust and organized their society to prevent anything like that from ever happening again, the Turks deny the Armenian Genocide and despite clear historical evidence to the contrary, claim that the Armenian deaths were “collateral damage” resulting from the war. This quotation is poignant in that by the time, the Western powers seriously challenged the Armenian genocide, most of the Armenians had been exterminated as Talat admitted.

The German catastrophic classification of people as superior and inferior did not start with the Nazis. It had been part of the German culture. What many feel makes Bismarck more cold-blooded than most Germans is that the latter were led to a hatred of the other ethnicities and would exterminate them for that reason, but Bismark had sympathy for the Poles yet advocated genocide simply on practical grounds. The analogy with the wolf shows this mentality at its worst.

This statement hardened the Israeli population away from anything that would bring Hamas more power. The PLO leader had, for ALL the Palestinian people, recognized the right of Israel to exist {633062}. The Israelis observe that this is a de facto declaration of war, and hence treat Gaza and Hamas as an enemy force to be reckoned with. See {635341} for another alarming reneging of the recognition of Israel.