Why Do The Turks Always Refuse To Admit The Armenian Genocide?

This is a question for a world renowned historian to answer, this very question was asked by Le Monde to Dr. Bernard Lewis an Ottoman and Islamic Historian, a New York Times Best Seller Author:

Ottoman and Islamic Historian, NYT Best Seller Bernard Lewis wrote:

You mean, the Armenian version of the history? There was an Armenian problem for the Turks created by the advance of the Russians, and also there was a population with an anti-Turkish sentiment in the Ottoman Empire who sought independence, and they overtly sympathized with the Russians advancing from the Caucasus. Also, there were Armenian bands, the Armenians bragged about their heroic exploits . . in resistance, and the Turks had trouble to maintain order under the prevailing war conditions. For the Turks it was necessary to take the punitive and preventive measure against a hostile population in a region threatened by foreign invasion. For the Armenians it was liberating their land. However, both parties agree that the repression was geographically limited; for example, those measures did not affect the Armenians who lived in the other parts of the Ottoman Empire.

No one has any doubt that terrible events took place; the Armenians, as well as the Turks suffered and perished in equal measure. Yet, no one will be able to tell what the circumstances were like, and how many people died. Consider, for instance, the case of Lebanon [Beirut] that took place recently and in full view of the entire world. During their [the Armenians] relocation to Syria [an Ottoman province at that time] hundred thousands of Armenians died on account of famine and epidemics. However, when you brought up the question of "genocide", you imply that there was a deliberate policy of extermination, to annihilate systematically the Armenian nation. This is very doubtful. The Turkish documents prove an action of relocation, not extermination.

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Why PBS Never Air Pro-Turkish Documentaries To Be Fair?

PBS Airs a Documentary Promoting Armenian Genocide "A Family Erased"

"A Family Erased" is a documentary by Armenian director George Kachadorian, depicts the journey his father and two sisters take to Eastern Turkey to find the lost homes their family had migrated from in early 1900s. The documentary has the theme of the Armenian Genocide acknowledging it and promoting it's awareness through this personal anecdote.

It is true that during 1915 and before many Armenians had migrated from Turkey, some to Erivan province where the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was powerful and recruiting soldiers for their rally against the Central Powers as they awaited aid from the Allied powers.

The story of 1915 is a fascinating one, because it is about a people who were hijacked much like the extremists hijacking Islam today; the Armenian people were hijacked by the various rebel groups, much like gangs in a city and those who opposed these gangs were murdered or tortured. The Armenian church was taken over as teaching centers for revolution rather than religion as atheist/agnostic Armenian Revolutionary Federation members began to smuggle thousands of weapons across from the Iranian and Russian borders to prepare for rebellion against the Ottoman Empire.

The rebellion did not begin because of World War I, the rebellion had begun back in the 1890s when European powers began to request that the Ottoman Empire grant more rights to the Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire. Though the Armenian people lived well, some of them even becoming governors of Ottoman provinces, they had a few less rights because the Ottoman Empire was an Islamic Empire but tolerated all Christian minorities.

The fighting in Eastern Anatolia as well had been there since the dawn of time, even before the Ottomans as Kurdish, Armenian, Byzantine, and later Turkish forces often clashed in the vast open mountains of Eastern Anatolia.

When the rebellion got completely out of control, causing serious damage to the Ottoman war effort in World War I, the Ottoman leadership in 1915, a few months after the rebellion in Van city (where the Armenians captured an Ottoman city for the Allied Russians), decided that it was time to take emergency action to cease the rebellion. They decided to relocate Armenians only in Eastern Anatolia of suspected rebellion hotspots to the Syrian Ottoman territory. Nonetheless, the forced migration took a death toll on the Armenian population, as money was scarce in the Ottoman Empire, food shortages, the spread of violent diseases -- so much so that the Ottoman army itself went into battle starving and diseased.

Though many Armenians died, some of them leaving behind their homes and property, there was a very high survival rate. The reason Armenians claim genocide today is because once they reached Syria, many of them took Allied warships to France, Russia, the United States, and Britain. Some crossed the border to Iran and Russia disappearing from Eastern Anatolia.

And since the Turkish archives were closed up until 1990s, scholars merely assumed that the Ottoman Empire had exterminated the Armenian people. However now, these same scholars having the ability to research the Ottoman Archives and being able to visit mass graves of Turkish and Armenian villages, have now decided to not accept the Armenian Genocide thesis as it once stood.

Many world renowned scholars, such as Dr. Bernard Lewis (who once believed in the Armenian Genocide but now does not) now realize that the Ottoman Empire did everything in its power to make sure the innocent Armenians survived, they simply wanted to disrupt the ARF operations that took place within the civilian population (much like terrorist cells) in a quick fashion. Though it cost many Armenian lives, it also cost many Turkish lives as well, and the rebellion did indeed weaken. The Western Turkish-Armenians were never even touched, so how could it have been a genocide?

If the Turks just wanted Armenian money, why didn't they just take the money from the Armenians in Western Turkey who were wealthier?

If there was a genocide, why can't they find any mass Armenian graves in Syria?

Is it just possible that perhaps the Armenians that died in small numbers were because of Kurdish bandits and raiders robbing vulnerable travelers being migrated to Syria?

Is it possible that the Ottoman Empire simply wanted to stop a rebellion in war-time rather than a diabolical plan to kill all Armenians?

PBS has decided to air this documentary, but isn't PBS suppose to be fair, why is it that they never air pro-Turkish documentaries to be fair? Isn't censorship of one side of the story a way of propaganda? Write a letter to PBS if you believe it isn't fair.

We only get to the truth through debate and open uncensored discussion, not through documentaries alone.

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