In article <1993Apr9.140123.12253@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> halsall@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU (Paul Halsall) writes:  >	It's curious that Serdar spend his time attacking Greeks and >Armenians. Who just happen to be historical opponents of Turkey. The  Because, the x-Soviet Armenian government got away with the genocide  of 2.5 million Turkish men, women and children and is enjoying the  fruits of that genocide. And they are doing 'it' again. Are you so  blind?  >problem is, everybody - Arab, Greek, Bulgar, Serb, Russian, Tartar,  >Circassian, Persian, Kurd - is, or has been an opponent. Who has been  Kurds 'R' us; Armenians 'R' not.  >an ally? This historic circumstance seems to have taken a certain >toll on Serdar: perhaps he should be posting to alt.raving.nationalist >rather than soc.history?  Excuse me?   "We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as    ways of escape for the Tartars and then proceeded in the work    of extermination. Our troops surrounded village after village.    Little resistance was offered. Our artillery knocked the huts    into heaps of stone and dust and when the villages became untenable    and inhabitants fled from them into fields, bullets and bayonets    completed the work. Some of the Tartars escaped of course. They    found refuge in the mountains or succeeded in crossing the border    into Turkey. The rest were killed. And so it is that the whole    length of the borderland of Russian Armenia from Nakhitchevan to    Akhalkalaki from the hot plains of Ararat to the cold mountain    plateau of the North were dotted with mute mournful ruins of    Tartar villages. They are quiet now, those villages, except for    howling of wolves and jackals that visit them to paw over the    scattered bones of the dead."                                Ohanus Appressian                             "Men Are Like That"                                    p. 202.   A genocide is a deliberate and organized massacre of people in an  attempt to exterminate a race. This is the worst crime in history.  It happened to the Turks in eastern Anatolia and the Armenian  dictatorship. 2.5 million Turks and Kurds were killed in the worst  ways imaginable. It is sickening to think that the human race is capable  of such actions, but there is no denying the fact that the Armenian  genocide of 2.5 million Muslims happened.  People of Turkiye deeply sympathize with those whose relatives were  killed in the Turkish genocide. I understand their anger that there  are those who still deny that the Turkish genocide indeed took place,  despite the fact that the genocide of 2.5 million Turks has been  well documented over the past six decades. We cannot reverse the events of the past, but we can and we must strive to keep the memory of this tragedy alive on this side of the Atlantic, so as to help prevent a recurrence of the extermination of a people because of their religion or their race.   Source: Bristol Papers, General Correspondence: Container #32 - Bristol         to Bradley Letter of September 14, 1920.  "I have it from absolute first-hand information that the Armenians in   the Caucasus attacked Tartar (Turkish) villages that are utterly   defenseless and bombarded these villages with artillery and they murder  the inhabitants, pillage the village and often burn the village."  >	Lets get somethings straight.  Why not?  >1.	Armenians are no angels, but they were subject to Turkish genocide.  And the Germans were subject to Jewish Genocide? Are you for real?  Tell me 'Halsall', were you high on "ASALA/SDPA/ARF" forgeries and fabrications when you wrote that? Where is your non-existent list of scholars. Here is mine: During the First World War and the ensuing  years - 1914-1920, the Armenian Dictatorship through a premeditated  and systematic genocide, tried to complete its centuries-old policy  of annihilation against the Turks and Kurds by savagely murdering  2.5 million Muslims and deporting the rest from their 1,000 year  homeland.  The attempt at genocide is justly regarded as the first instance of Genocide in the 20th Century acted upon an entire people. This event is incontrovertibly proven by historians, government and international political leaders, such as U.S. Ambassador Mark  Bristol, William Langer, Ambassador Layard, James Barton, Stanford  Shaw, Arthur Chester, John Dewey, Robert Dunn, Papazian, Nalbandian,  Ohanus Appressian, Jorge Blanco Villalta, General Nikolayef, General  Bolkovitinof, General Prjevalski, General Odiselidze, Meguerditche,  Kazimir, Motayef, Twerdokhlebof, General Hamelin, Rawlinson, Avetis Aharonian, Dr. Stephan Eshnanie, Varandian, General Bronsart, Arfa, Dr. Hamlin, Boghos Nubar, Sarkis Atamian, Katchaznouni, Rachel  Bortnick, Halide Edip, McCarthy, W. B. Allen, Paul Muratoff and many  others.  J. C. Hurewitz, Professor of Government Emeritus, Former Director of the Middle East Institute (1971-1984), Columbia University.  Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern History, Princeton University.  Halil Inalcik, University Professor of Ottoman History & Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, University of Chicago.  Peter Golden, Professor of History, Rutgers University, Newark.  Stanford Shaw, Professor of History, University of California at Los Angeles.  Thomas Naff, Professor of History & Director, Middle East Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania.  Ronald Jennings, Associate Professor of History & Asian Studies, University of Illinois.  Howard Reed, Professor of History, University of Connecticut.  Dankwart Rustow, Distinguished University Professor of Political Science, City University Graduate School, New York.  John Woods, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History,  University of Chicago.  John Masson Smith, Jr., Professor of History, University of California at Berkeley.  Alan Fisher, Professor of History, Michigan State University.  Avigdor Levy, Professor of History, Brandeis University.  Andreas G. E. Bodrogligetti, Professor of History, University of California at Los Angeles.  Kathleen Burrill, Associate Professor of Turkish Studies, Columbia University.  Roderic Davison, Professor of History, George Washington University.  Walter Denny, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts.  Caesar Farah, Professor of History, University of Minnesota.  Tom Goodrich, Professor of History, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  Tibor Halasi-Kun, Professor Emeritus of Turkish Studies, Columbia University.  Justin McCarthy, Professor of History, University of Louisville.  Jon Mandaville, Professor of History, Portland State University (Oregon).  Robert Olson, Professor of History, University of Kentucky.  Madeline Zilfi, Professor of History, University of Maryland.  James Stewart-Robinson, Professor of Turkish Studies, University of Michigan.  .......so the list goes on and on and on.....  Now wait, there is more.    Mark Alan Epstein, 'The Ottoman Jewish Communities and their Role   in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,' Klaus Schwarz Werlag,   Freiburg (1980).    page 19:   <<During the fifteenth century, when the Ottomans were struggling to   reestablish themselves in the Balkans, there was considerable turmoil   among the Jewish communities in Central and Western Europe. Even if   the difficulties of the darker centuries immediately preceding the   fourteenth are minimized, it is easy to understand the attraction which   Ottoman life, particularly when compared to life in Europe, held for the   Jews. There is no way to tell how many Jews left Christendom for the   realm of the rising Muslim Ottomans, but with each account of persecution   in or expulsion from Christian countries it is recorded that some Jews   fled to Ottoman territory. The regularity of these reports suggests that   the Ottomans were considered reasonably tolerant protectors and that   there was a regular trickle of Jewish families moving southward and   eastward from Western and Central Europe. (...) It is evident that the   effects of plague, late crusades, and the general intolerance and   persecution of Jews in Christian Europe resulted in the redirection   of the whole focus of Jewish life which, for more than two centuries,   was to be oriented toward Muslim East.>>     page 21:    <<In the second quarter of the fifteenth century the foremost official   in the  Edirne Jewish community was Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati the Ashkenazi   Chief Rabbi of the city. He was the most important rabbi in the city and   the author of an important letter which tells us something of the situation   of the Edirne Jewry in the fifteenth century. Sarfati himself was from   Christian Europe and supposedly wrote this letter at the behest of two   recent arrivals from there, who, upon seeing the prosperity and freedom   of the Ottoman Jews, prevailed upon him to write their European   coreligionists apprising them of the situation and urging them to migrate.   This remarkable letter advised its recipients not only of the pleasant   conditions in the Ottoman domains, but described as well the ease of   travel to Palestine and the holy places, an attraction to those who   would make a pilgrimage or choose to be buried there.>> (*)     page 41:   <<...the impression gained from the Hebrew sources is that the Jews were  firmly aware of the community of interests which existed between them  and the Ottomans, especially in comparison to relations with the Christians  of Europe.   Confirmation of the commonality of interests between Muslims and Jews is  also indicated by the fact that European Christians perceived the Jews  as allies of Islam and were well aware of Muslim-Jewish cooperation.  Certainly the activity of important Jewish financiers and politicians  representing the Ottoman government abroad did not pass unnoticed. European  sources are the basis for much of our knowledge of their careers. In addition  it appears that Christian pirates plundered ''Turks and Jews,''  their  sworn enemies, and that Europeans considered the Jews to be agents who  regularly reported to the Ottomans.   There are well-known examples of overt Jewish support for the Ottomans  in the struggle against European powers. The two best known instances  of Jewish support for the campaigning Ottomans are the frequently cited  instances of the Jewish contributions to the conquests of Buda, in the  early sixteenth century, and of Rhodes. We also have reports of sympathy  for the Ottomans during the siege of Chios. An unpublished Ottoman  document shows dramatically the mutual interests which existed in some  Greek towns...>>   page 43:    <<It is clear that throughout the sixteenth century it was a generally  accepted fact that the interests of Jews and Muslims coincided frequently,  and all parties involved, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, were aware of  the situation.>>    page 46:   <<...it seems that the relations between Greeks and Jews were not  particularly cordial. The two groups had little in common, few common  interests, and perceived no common philosophical or religious tradition  which could serve as the basis for cooperation, rather than enmity. If  there was any identifiable bond of good will which existed between  religious communities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was  that between Muslims and Jews, neither of whom had much in common with  the Orthodox.>>   page 46:   <<The general impression of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman context  during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is one of community of  interests. From the earliest times the Ottomans seem to have welcomed  Jews to their territory and to have found in the communities already  existing in places which they conquered a cooperative element. The Jewish  response to this tolerance was a steady flow of Jews from Christian  countries to Ottoman domains.>>   page 151:    <<From the period before 1453 we have only a few indications that the   Ottoman-Jewish relationship was well on the course of amity which would   characterize it for years afterward, but the liberality of the Ottomans,   in contrast to the intolerance of the Byzantines, and the protection and   the security which the Ottomans offered, in comparison to conditions   elsewhere, leave little doupt that even then both the Ottomans and the   Jews recognized their mutual interests...>>    page 161:    <<It is impossible to say how fundamental the Jews were in the success   of the Ottomans in rebuilding Istanbul or in Ottoman mercantile success   in the sixteenth century. That they played an important role in both   cannot be doupted. It is also unclear whether they were important enough   to say that the Ottomans would not have experienced their great success   without the Jews and that no other group could have been found to serve   the Ottomans as well as did the Jews. It is, however, unmistakably clear   that there are few parallels in world history to this remarkable   partnership between Jews and the non-Jewish society in which they lived.   We must conclude that the Ottomans could probably not achieved their   success without a group performing certain tasks for them as well as the   Jews did. Certainly for the Jews of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries   the Ottoman Empire was a most remarkable and salubrious home.>>   (*) A version of Rabbi Sarfati's [Tzarfati] letter is given by Prof.Shaw:    page 32:    <<Your cries and sobs reached us. We have been told of all the troubles   and persecutions which you have to suffer in the German lands....I hear   the lamentation of my brethren...The barbarous and cruel nation ruthlessly   oppresses the faithful children of the chosen people...The priests and   prelates of Rome have risen. They wish to root out the memory of Jacob   and erase the name of Israel. They always devise new persecutions. They   wish to bring you to the stake...Listen my brethren, to the counsel I will   give you. I too was born in Germany and studied Torah with the German   rabbis. I was driven out of my native country and came to the Turkish land,   which is blessed by God and filled with all good things. Here I found rest   and happiness; Turkey can also become for you the land of peace...If you   who live in Germany knew even a tenth of what God has blessed us with   in this land, you would not consider any difficulties; you would set out   to come to us...Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain   of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver in our hands. We are   not oppressed with heavy taxes, and our commerce is free and unhindered.   Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap, and every one of us   lives in peace and freedom. Here the Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow   hat as a badge of shame, as is the case in Germany, where even wealth and   great fortune are a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy   among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him   to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect   your forces, and come to us. Here you will be free of your enemies, here   you will find rest...>>[13]  [13] Israel Zinberg, A History Of Jewish Literature. vol.V. The Jewish      Center of Culture in the Ottoman Empire (Hebrew Union College Press,      Ktav Publishers, New York, 1974).  Serdar Argic