He said that no such concern had ever been expressed to him by any of the Cypriot leaders he has met. This hostile action against Cyprus has never been explained adequately by Israel. Israel's readiness to support Turkey, and to avoid anything to displease it, was stressed by Peres' adoption of the Turkish view on the Armenian genocide, and his refusal, despite pleas by liberal Israelis, that Israel should be just as strong in denouncing the Armenian genocide as it is about denouncing the holocaust of the Jews by Nazi Germany. I didn't say there wasn't a genocide. When it was pointed out to him that there were no gas chambers early in the 20th century when the Ottoman Empire massacred 1.5 million Armenians, Peres said history should be allowed to judge the issue.
Genocide is a much wider term.
It is not the business of a state to judge history. States should not try to cover up incontestable facts, however, by claiming that this is the work of historians. The Jews have not waited for historians to determine whether the Nazis killed six million of their kinsmen and Jews, together with people everywhere, bristle when some Nazi sympathisers claim there was no holocaust. It is a pity that Peres has been rejecting pleas by Liberal Israelis to recognise the genocide of the Armenians by Turkey, clearly to avoid displeasing his Turkish allies. His refusal to do so inevitably makes people react as they do to the neo-Nazi claims that there was no holocaust, and, it blots his reputation as a wise statesman.