There Was No Armenian Genocide

Peloni:  As I noted in my earlier preface on Israeli governmental recognition of the Armenian Genocide, it is better described as ‘ethnic cleansing’, which is altogether different from what the word ‘genocide’ portends.

By Sha’i ben-Tekoa

Armenian Genocide Female Orphans. Photo by K. Polis : Published by M. Hovakimean, 1920. – Babel.hathitrust.org, Public Domain, Wikipedia

Although Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who escaped to America in 1939, lost 49 family members in the Holocaust, invented the word genocide in 1944, and cited the fate of Armenians in 1915 at the hands of the barbaric Turks as an example of genocide, he was wrong about that, and on 28 June when the GOI (Government of Israel) joined the hostile gentile world by admitting that the Armenians were targeted for genocide too, that was another mistake.

In recent years, the word genocide has been horribly distorted and cheapened. For example, in May 2025, Donald Trump hosted at the White House families of white South African farmers whose pater familias had been murdered by black South Africans to steal their farm. There had been some 129 terrible murderers like this over the past few years that Trump called “genocide.”

As both Christianity and Islam claim to be the real Judaism; as today’s so-called “Palestinians” claim to be the authentic indigenous people of the Bible’s Promised Land, so the concept of genocide – initially uniquely associated to the national crucifixion of the Jews — has been pilfered and perverted. Today, millions of people believe that the Jews are now the ones committing genocide against the allegedly innocent and allegedly archaic “Palestinian” people (when there is nothing Palestinian about them.)

President Obama appointed Ireland-born Samantha Power to be ambassadress for the U.S. in the U.N. after she wrote a book deflating the Holocaust as something unique to the Jews. She reported on six terrible episodes of hysterical human cruelty and mass killing as examples of genocide when they were not. Genocide is not a synonym for massacre.

Anti-Jews are most uncomfortable with the misunderstood Jewish concept of “The Chosen People,” and if genocide is unique to the Jewish people, that is evidence they are a people apart, and types like Samantha Power are uncomfortable with that.

Belief in the Jews as divinely chosen is an impossible-to-prove religious belief; take it or leave it. But what cannot be denied is the facticity of the Jews as most certainly the world’s chosen people if not by the Almighty than by other men for a special fate of cruelty, hatred and abuse.

There are no more ardent examples of this kind of Jewish chosenness than what it has done to the minds of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Steve Bannon, Jeremy Corbyn, Hassan Piker and every lunatic Jew-hater active today. They believe the most outlandish and ignorant lies about Jews, a fate unique to this people. What other religious community is the target of such contumely, a word the dictionary defines as “insolent, arrogant rudeness, or a contemptuous and humiliating insult.” Today’s Jew-haters are positively obsessed with sneering at Jews for their allegedly evil ways that never, as always, have any truth to them.

Samantha Power wrote up these six massacres but none them fit the sense of Lemkin’s invented word. He seems to have used either the Greek “genos” meaning “family, clan, tribe, race, stock, kin,” a variety of groups; or more likely used the Latin “gens” meaning specifically “nation.” Then he attached the common suffix “-cide” meaning killing.

In this sense, Lemkin’s, genocide means the utter extermination of a nation, but that is not what happened to the Armenians in 1915. It was truly a mass horror in which the Muslims murdered 1.5 individual million Armenian human beings who suffered as much as their fellow human beings the Jews in their Holocaust. Jews have no monopoly on individual human suffering.

But what happened to these Armenians was simply not an attempt to murder every Armenian on the planet so there would be no longer any Armenians in the world in the future speaking their language, enjoying their cuisine, attending Armenian Apostolic Churches.

The subsequent German genocide of the Jews in the 20th century was the eighth attempt in history to exterminate the entirety of this people. Nazism’s maniacs chanted “Heute Deutschland, Morgen Die Ganze Welt,” dreaming of world conquest, and in every conquered country they would find all the Jews and kill them, so that in the future, there would be no more individual Jews and certainly no more Jewish nation practicing the Jewish religion.

That is very different from what the savage Muslims did to their brutalized Armenian victims. The Turks wanted the land east of the Turkish heartland on which millions of Armenians were living, and as barbarians, they had no humane scruples against doing everything to drive them off that land – rape, torture, the whole menu of cruelty Muslims are very good at.

But that was still not part of a crusade (or should we say crescentade?) to find and murder every Armenian on the planet because the Muslims thought the Armenians were a threat to the existence of Turkey, as Hitler believed the Jews wanted to destroy and take over Germany and really the whole world.

That was the goal of the Nazis; to find all the Jews on the planet and kill them, so that in the future there would be no more Jews at all.

Nazi propaganda portrayed this people as swarming, disease-ridden rats. Hitler likened them to gigantic microbes capable of imitating the appearance and behavior of human beings. Hitler thought he was saving not only Germany but Die Ganze Welt.

But long before Der Fuehrer wanted to exterminate the entire Jewish people, Pharaoh in Egypt did too. His was the first genocidal plan in Jewish history. The Patriarch Jacob had come into Egypt with a party of 70 family members. More than a century later, they had grown to over a million Hebrews, which frightened Pharaoh. They were far more fertile than his own people, for Egyptians were as sexually grotesque as the Greeks and Romans.

The Hebrews were also talented and intelligent, and he rightly feared them taking over the country.

His strategy: As a way to reduce their birth rate, he would burden them with hard labor, wear out the men so they had no strength for relations with their wives. But when that did not work out, he called for all male Jewish baby boys to be drowned in the Nile. This was the first attempted genocide.

Then came the Assyrians who kidnapped ten of the twelve tribes, likely thinking this would kill off the Israelites.

Then came the Babylonians who destroyed the Temple thinking the Jews would lose their religion and therefore their identity, as they carried off many of their leaders to Babylon.

Then there were the Persians who wanted to kill all the Jews in their vast empire of 127 countries; then came the Greeks who wanted to kill off the Jews via assimilation; and the second war with Rome ended with the great dispersion and Rome’s changing the name of Judea — that they themselves had used for two centuries — to Palaestina, and changing Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina in an effort to expunge even the memory of Jews from history.

The Czarist Russians kidnapped Jewish boys into the army for terms of 25 years, keeping them away from Jewish life; then the Communist Russians were determined to exterminate all religions as the opiate of the masses.

So, Israel does itself no favor by calling the Armenian horror genocide that contributes to the further corruption of this word. There is no evidence the Turks wanted to kill all the Armenians in the world, and therefore their cruelty was not genocide.

Only Jews are targets for that.

 

PHANTOM NATION: Inventing the “Palestinians” as the Obstacle to Peace is available at Amazon.com in hard cover or a Kindle ebook. His podcasts can be heard on www.phantom-nation.com and www.israelnewstalkradio.com

July 1, 2026 | 14 Comments »

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  2. “As both Christianity and Islam claim to be the real Judaism;”

    I am a Christian. While I respect Israel and Judaism and while my King James Bible is 3/4 composed of the Jewish Tanach, that we call the “Old Testament” I do not and no Christian Church I have ever attended claims to be the “real Judaism” any more than we Christians claim to be the “Real Hinduism.”

    We broke from Judaism 2000 years ago and our Savior, Jesus Christ, born a Galilean who we believe is the Son of The Almighty was executed by the Romans. His Jewish and Gentile followers were executed by Saduccees in Jerusalem before the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD like James. Similarly Paul and Peter and thousands of other Christians were executed by the Romans. You seriously think the Romans gave a damn whether some of the Christians they murdered believed in any “Replacement” Theory.

    Today we have Christianity that exists all by itself. Yes there are some “replacement” believers who claim that Christianity “replaced” Judaism but that is a very small group of non-entities. Historically the churches believed in “Supersessionism” where the Christian Church replaced Judaism. That belief has faded over time especially with the Catholic Church.

    In any case it is NOT a foundational principle of any Church I have been to nor have I ever heard a priest or pastor ever preach it in church.

    If both Christainity and Islam both claim they are the New Judasim you can see the absurdity in this very claim because i don’t believe in a damn thing Muslims believe in. NOTHING. In turn they don’t believe in any of my beliefs with sole exception of a single God – monotheism, but then so do Jews.

  3. Email received:

    I disagree. If Erdogan has his way and gets as strong as Hitler he will wipe out Armenia. Those he doesn’t kill will be forcibly converted…and he would do the same in Israel. He is Hitler in the making for all non-Muslims or even different Muslims (like Kurds). The remaining Armenians in present-day Turkey are Dihimmis, totally unsure of their fate.

    Not recognizing other Holocausts diminishes the status of ours and is morally unjust. Deliberately choosing Azeri Muslims over Armenians seems to me perverse. Check out how captured Armenians have been treated by their Azeri captors in their recent war…and how at least 125,000 Armenians were forced out of Nagorno Karrabakh.

  4. the armenian genocide was the dry run for the Holocaust. What was the German involvement gling back to 1890? What did Hitler say about it? What was the evolving relationship begween anto- Jewish racism and anti-Armenian racism at the turn of the 20th century?

    +16 The Armenian Genocide served as a critical historical and ideological precedent for the Holocaust. German complicity, Hitler’s rhetoric, and the evolving racial stereotyping of Armenians and Jews reflect a deeply interconnected history of state-sponsored elimination.Evolving Racist Paradigms (Late 19th – Early 20th Century)Before Nazism emerged, German cultural and political discourse began to stereotype both Armenians and Jews through parallel frameworks.The “Jews of the Orient”: At the turn of the 20th century, German writers and intellectuals—such as popular author Karl May in the 1890s—stereotyped Armenians as the “Jews of the Orient”. This was an antisemitic and anti-Armenian double-stereotype. It depicted both groups as shrewd, distinct, and economically successful minorities living among “host” populations.Shift to Biological Racism: During World War I, as the Ottoman Empire carried out the Armenian Genocide, German elites—who were allied with the Ottomans—grappled with the violence. Rather than viewing Armenians purely through religious strife, influential figures in Germany increasingly framed the Armenian question as an explicit, national, and “racial” problem that required systemic solutions.German Involvement Going Back to the 1890sGermany’s connection to the persecution of Armenians spans several decades:The 1890s Massacres: When Sultan Abdul Hamid II massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the 1890s, Imperial Germany—eager to secure influence in the Ottoman Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II—adopted a policy of excusing or censoring news of the atrocities as a foreign policy necessity.World War I Complicity: During the 1915 genocide, Germany was a military ally of the Ottomans and deployed thousands of troops to the Middle Eastern theater. German officers, including high-ranking military advisors like Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, were fully aware of the atrocities and, in some cases, were directly involved in the planning and execution of deportation orders.Ideological & Material Support: Germany provided the weapons used in the massacres, including [Mauser] rifles and [Krupp] artillery. Furthermore, many future Nazi figures, such as Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (who served as a German vice-consul in the Ottoman Empire during the genocide), observed the annihilation of the Armenians firsthand and later brought these lessons to Adolf Hitler.What Hitler Said About ItOn August 22, 1939, just one week before invading Poland, Hitler gave a speech at his Obersalzberg residence outlining his plans for total war and the physical destruction of the enemy.To justify the coming brutality and assure his generals that the international community would not intervene, Hitler infamously stated:”Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”This quote was recorded by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence, and subsequently introduced as evidence during the Nuremberg Trials. Historians generally agree that Hitler was explicitly citing the Armenian Genocide as an instructive historical precedent: he recognized that the Ottoman Empire had successfully eliminated a minority population and gotten away with it on the world stage, making it a prime blueprint for the Holocaust.

    • who wrote 40 days of musa dagh and why? What role it play in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, The pre-state Yishuv, and global awareness of the Armenian genocide? What was the ethnicity of the writer, should Jews be guilt-tripping Armenians for ingratitude, rather than the other way around? What role did Armenians play during the Holocaust? When did Armenia recognize Israel? Do Armenians have an anti-semitism problem?

      +14 The seminal novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh was written by Franz Werfel, an Austrian-Bohemian writer of Jewish descent. He wrote it in 1933 after encountering starving Armenian refugee children in Syria, creating a literary monument designed to warn the world of the escalating danger of Hitler’s Nazism.The Role of the NovelWarsaw Ghetto Uprising: The book served as a vital spiritual guide for Jewish resistance. It circulated widely underground in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, and Jewish resisters openly referred to their planned revolts as their own “Musa Dagh” moment.The Pre-State Yishuv: In Mandate Palestine, the book resonated deeply with the Jewish community, symbolizing survival, collective self-defense, and the triumph of a persecuted indigenous group.Global Awareness: It became an instant international bestseller, bringing the catastrophe of the Armenian Genocide to the attention of the Western world for the first time.Ethnicity and Mutual RelationsFranz Werfel was Jewish. Regarding “guilt-tripping” over gratitude, historians and sociologists treat mutual relations as complex and reciprocal. Both groups share a deep historical empathy due to their respective traumas and diasporic histories. While there have been historical instances of both solidarity and friction, framing the relationship as a transactional debate over ingratitude oversimplifies the diverse political and social realities of both communities.Armenians During the HolocaustThroughout World War II, a segment of the Armenian diaspora lived in areas occupied by Nazi Germany, and like many minority populations, responses varied. While the broader Armenian community suffered under Nazi racial theories, certain factions collaborated, mirroring dynamics seen in other occupied nations where individuals made localized choices for survival or due to political ideology. Conversely, many individual Armenians actively participated in anti-Nazi resistance networks.Armenia and Israel RelationsDiplomatic Recognition: The State of Israel officially recognized the independence of the Republic of Armenia on December 25, 1991. Diplomatic relations were subsequently established in April 1992.Genocide Recognition: Israel refrained from formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide for decades due to geopolitical sensitivities with Turkey. However, in late June 2026, the Israeli Cabinet unanimously approved a resolution to formally recognize it as a genocide.Anti-Semitism in ArmeniaSurveys conducted by groups like the Pew Research Center have historically shown elevated levels of anti-Semitic attitudes in Armenia compared to some Western nations, often rooted in historical and religious stereotypes, combined with broader geopolitical frustrations (such as Israel’s military ties with Azerbaijan). However, scholars note that these sentiments are typically localized or theoretical, and the small, historically established Jewish community in Armenia generally experiences little to no physical harassment or targeted institutional discrimination.Would you like to explore Franz Werfel’s personal journey in writing the novel, or delve into the specific diplomatic impact of recent geopolitical shifts between Israel and Armenia?

      • armenia iran israel

        16 sites
        The geopolitical relationship between Armenia, Iran, and Israel is currently defined by Israel’s recent formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, a highly cautious diplomatic response from Armenia, and the spillover effects of ongoing Israel–Iran military conflicts. Armenia operates under a delicate balancing act, navigating its critical economic reliance on Iran while managing complex regional security shifts driven by Israel. [1, 2, 3, 4]

        Israel’s Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
        On June 28, 2026, the Israeli Cabinet unanimously approved a historic proposal to formally designate the World War I mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. [1]
        * The Motive: For decades, Israel avoided formal recognition to safeguard diplomatic and defense ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan. However, the move follows a severe deterioration of Israel’s relations with Turkey amidst regional conflicts. [1, 2, 3]
        * The Regional Fallout: The decision drew heavy condemnation from Turkey and Israel’s close military ally, Azerbaijan, which urged Israel to reverse the decision. [1, 2]

        Armenia’s “Cold” Response and Snub
        Remarkably, Armenia has distanced itself from the Israeli gesture. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Armenia sees no need to respond to Israel’s decision. [1, 2, 3]
        * Avoiding Weaponization: Pashinyan emphasized that avoiding the “political weaponization” of the historical tragedy is in Yerevan’s primary interest. [1]
        * Protecting Key Priorities: Embracing Israel’s announcement could derail Armenia’s active peace negotiations and normalization efforts with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Furthermore, enthusiastic gratitude to Tel Aviv would jeopardize Armenia’s critical ties with Iran. [1, 2]

        The Impact of the Israel–Iran Conflict on Armenia
        Armenia is a highly vulnerable bystander to the ongoing military conflict between Israel (allied with the U.S.) and Iran. [1, 2]
        * Border and Refugee Strains: Iran is Armenia’s critical logistical gateway to the outside world. Air strikes and military instability in Iran have triggered waves of civilians and Iranian citizens crossing the Agarak border checkpoint into Armenia to seek safety. [1, 2, 3]
        * Economic Pressures: The ongoing conflict has caused major trade disruptions, resulting in inflated energy costs and diminished trade flows for the Armenian economy. [1]
        * Security Dilemma: Armenia relies heavily on Iran as a geopolitical counterweight and deterrent against regional pressure from Azerbaijan (which is heavily supplied with military hardware by Israel). The weakening of Iran’s position via Israeli operations threatens to disrupt the fragile South Caucasus balance of power, potentially exposing Armenia’s southern Syunik region to further aggression. [1, 2, 3, 4]

        AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses

        I disagree with AI Overview’s characterization of Azerbaijan as the aggressor in the late conflicts.

        **And, news flash: THE CAPITAL – As well as Capitol* – OF ISRAEL IS JERUSALEM! (not Tel Aviv**).

        Humor:

        “Hello, Hello, anybody home? Think, McFly, Think!” – “Back to the Future” Parts 1-3 (1985), (1989), (1990)

        https://youtu.be/JhJGOYJo9mM?is=J-_sSo8MToOWgi4Y

        “Biff Tannen corrects his silly phrase after 60 years”

        https://youtu.be/_qYEg92r4Ts?is=zHziQtHQ3dv31e03

        —

        “capital or capital”

        *While “capital” and “capitol” sound exactly the same, they have completely different meanings. A capital (with an “a”) refers to a primary city, accumulated wealth, or uppercase letters. A capitol (with an “o”) strictly refers to a specific building where lawmakers meet.Here is a quick breakdown to help you keep them straight:Capital:City: The primary seat of government (e.g., The Capital of New York is Albany, and the nation’s capital is Washington, D.C.).Money: Accumulated wealth or financial assets used to start a business or invest.Letters: Uppercase or “big” letters (e.g., “Always start a sentence with a capital letter”).Importance: Used to describe something of primary importance or the death penalty (e.g., a “capital offense”).Capitol:Building: Specifically refers to the building where a legislative body meets. In the U.S., the proper noun “Capitol” (capital C) is used when talking about the building in Washington, D.C. where Congress meets. States also have their own capitol buildings (e.g., the California State Capitol in Sacramento).Tip: You can remember that the “O” in capitol stands for the one specific building”

    • Dear Commenter, Please re-read what I wrote. E.g. “I will just mention that the death rate for Armenians then was much higher than that for Jews in WWII” This is completely irrelevant.This is not a competition. The difference between the two horrors was the purpose. The Germans wanted to kill all Jews in the World. The Turks just wanted and said nothing of Armenians around the world.

  6. There are several errors in this article which I will comment on later.

    For now, I will just mention that the death rate for Armenians then was much higher than that for Jews in WWII (the reason that the genocides did not succeed fully was the same in both cases).

    • @Reader
      It is very good to hear from you.

      the reason that the genocides did not succeed fully was the same in both cases

      I disagree. Were there female children set aside in the Shoah to be used as breeding stock, as it were, as was the case in the Armenian Genocide? No. See the photo included with this essay. There is no equivalent of Jewish female children being set aside to be used as chattel in the sexual slavery which followed the slaughter of the Shoah.

      Were converted Jews offered any source of protection in the Shoah as some Armenian converts were shown some level of protection in the Armenian Genocide? Again, no. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forcibly converted and saved from the slaughter of the Armenian genocide. Jews converted four generations back were not granted any protection from the Shoah.

      Noting these differences obviously does not condone what took place in Armenia, nor does it change the character of the slaughter of those who were slaughtered, their trials, nor to the tragedy to the Armenian public, but the slaughter of the Jews was intentionally comprehensive, without exceptions and was only limited by the lack of access which the Nazis had to the remainder of the world’s Jews and the facilities which were granted equal basis to the Nazi war effort. This was not universally true of what took place in Armenia.

  8. Well, to me this is splitting hairs.
    I am OK with terms like “Armenian” or “Rwandan” or “Cambodian” “Genocide”.
    And each of them had their own characteristics.
    It is true that as far as I know, Germans were the only people who wanted to exterminate Jews everywhere in the world.

    On the other hand, it seems like Hutus in Rwanda, really wanted to kill all Tsutsis, or else, they’d just let them escape to Congo.

    The word Ethnic Cleansing, is very poorly defined.
    Was transfer of Germans from Sudeten an ethnic cleansing, or just a population transfer, or is it the same?

    • Not it is no okay to use the term for horrors and monstrous massacres that were NOT about exterminating a “nation”. It does not apply to groups, tries, clans.