One of the more absurd responses to the flotilla raid during the last two weeks has been the sudden discovery of the importance of Armenian genocide commemoration by many of the same people and institutions that used to go out of their way to cast doubt on the reality of the genocide or to mock efforts to commemorate it with a non-binding resolution in Congress. Three years ago, when the new Democratic majority under Pelosi was seriously considering bringing the genocide resolution to a vote (partly because of the strong influence of Armenian-Americans in California politics), The Washington Times published one of the most appalling denialist op-eds by Bruce Fein. Today Turkey has become the new target of vilification, particularly on the American right, and so recognizing the genocide has suddenly become so great an imperative that The Washington Times has published an op-ed by Raffi Hovanissian that joins in the vilification campaign while also arguing for genocide recognition. Indeed, bashing Turkey has apparently become important enough that the reason why Turkey is being vilified seems to have been lost on the editors at the Times, as Hovanissan writes this:

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is wrong and requires resolution. Palestine, like mountainous Karabagh, has earned its right of sovereign statehood.

If the blockade is wrong and requires resolution, how exactly was Turkey in the wrong by permitting or even encouaging activists to try to break it? If Hovanissian thinks Palestine and Karabakh should both have status as sovereign states, why would he take this opportunity to side with the government that is doing to Palestinians the same thing he complains that Turkey is doing to Armenia and Karabakh? The initiative to re-open the border between Turkey and Armenia has stalled, but does anyone think that Ankara is going to be more inclined to relent in its pro-Azeri position in the future if Armenians, especially former Armenian foreign ministers, choose this moment to jump on the anti-Turkish bandwagon? Hovanissian may not appreciate how bizarre it is for him to take to the op-ed pages of a newspaper that happily entertained the arguments of pro-Turkish lobbyists who were working to quash recognition of the genocide just a few years ago, but the cynicism on the part of the newspaper’s editors is awesome to behold.

There is no question that Ankara’s efforts to quash genocide recognition in Congress here is infuriating and wrong, and I have written many times over the last three years against this lobbying and the state-enforced genocide denial in Turkey. For years and decades, “pro-Israel” figures, hawks and hegemonists all rallied against the genocide resolution because they claimed they did not wish to damage our valuable alliance with Turkey. I have normally ridiculed the assumption that a non-binding resolution, even one with great symbolic importance, was going to damage a major military and political alliance significantly, and I still take that view. Until the last two weeks, I could at least take seriously that there were many reasonable people who opposed the genocide resolution because they feared it would unnecessarily strain relations with Turkey. With some important exceptions, I no longer think that’s true.

Now some of the very same people who pretended that a non-binding resolution commemorating the victims of a CUP government that ceased to exist ninety years ago was going to be a terrible blow to the U.S.-Turkish relationship are working overtime to destroy that relationship. These hawks are now so intent on wrecking the relationship that they are even trying to co-opt genocide commemoration simply to score points against the Turkish government. And why is Turkey the new villain? Because it has not been as subservient to U.S. policies and because it has been unduly critical of Israel. Unfortunately, because genocide commemoration has been stymied for so many years by many of these hawks and their allies, there is going to be an impulse to capitalize on the situation, push through the genocide resolution when resistance is at its weakest, and thereby guarantee that Turkish-Armenian relations will remain in limbo for years and decades to come.

There is an opportunity here for the Republic of Armenia and Diasporan Armenians to generate some goodwill in Turkey by supporting Turkey’s complaints over the raid and the blockade, and possibly revive the chances of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. That opportunity will be lost if Armenia and American supporters of genocide commemoration effectively throw in their lot with a government that has subjected a large civilian population to immiseration and poverty and has killed civilians who were attempting to bring them aid. Congress should pass the resolution, but it should do so in an atmosphere in which it is clear that it is not part of a petulant attack on the modern Turkish republic, and it certainly should not pass it as part of the general anti-Turkish hysteria building in Congress on account of Congressional support for Israel’s wrongdoing against Turkey.