Chapter 13 - Unconventional Restorative Justice and the Diplomacy of Closure: The Israeli Policy on the Armenian Genocide and the Geopolitics of Memory

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This chapter examines the degree to which the absence of “restorative justice” between Armenians and Turks has become a factor in international relations, especially since the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is argued that for more than three decades (1980s–2010s) Israel has chosen to reinforce the Turkish account of the events of 1915 for its own diplomatic ends. After a long period of silence, during the late 1970s the differing Armenian and Turkish interpretations of the 1915 genocide became increasingly, and somewhat violently, entrenched. This chapter explores the particular role that Israel played with respect to the “diplomacy of closure” between Armenians and Turks, and argues that for more than three decades (1980s–2010s) Israel consciously has chosen to reinforce the Turkish narrative for its own selfish diplomatic and political ends. The Israeli parliament's failure to recognise the Armenian genocide has made it easier for successive Israeli governments to reinforce the Turkish account of the events of the 1915 genocide, making Israel's economic, military and arms deals with Turkey and, in recent years, with Azerbaijan, much smoother. In these respects, the chapter explores the paradox of Israel, a country born in large part out of a post-World War II sense of restorative justice for the Holocaust and the commemoration of its own genocide as “unique” colluding in the denial of recognition of the Armenian genocide. As this chapter will show – especially during the 1980s but also throughout the 1990s and 2000s – Israel took advantage of the consequences of a lack of conventional restorative justice for the Armenian genocide, such as Armenian terrorism and pressure on Turkey in international forums, as diplomatic leverage to restore Israeli – Turkish relations.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

The Nuremberg trials of prominent Nazis after the end of World War II and the growing awareness of international human rights have boosted the emergence of what we now identify as the field of Transitional Justice (TJ), an umbrella term covering measures undertaken by societies that seek to transition to the rule of law after episodes of mass violence. This chapter examines the question of those TJ mechanisms that have been labelled as “restorative justice” in the context of Israeli – Turkish and Israeli – Azerbaijani relations.