CANBERRA: The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), which is the peak public affairs representative of the Jewish-Australian community has called for Federal recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides in the lead-up to the 105th anniversary of the crime against humanity, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).
"The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the elected peak national body representing the Australian Jewish community, joins with our colleagues in the Armenian National Committee of Australia in calling upon all nations and all governments to recognise the reality of the genocide that occurred between 1915 and 1923, when more than 1 million Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians, almost all of them civilians, lost their lives at the hands of the Ottoman Caliphate, and many more were expelled from their homes," reads the statement signed by the organisation's Co-CEO, Peter Wertheim.
"In light of all the evidence, it cannot seriously be suggested that these actions, targeted at civilians on such a vast scale, and carried out with systematic brutality, were a mere happenstance of war. The ECAJ has long accepted the overwhelming verdict of history scholars that the killings and expulsions were carried out with genocidal intent."
The statement concluded: "Political expedience must never blind us to historical truth. A crime does not cease to be a crime simply because it is denied, no matter how often the denial is repeated. The scourge of genocide can only be overcome when political leaders unite in identifying and condemning it."
ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian thanked the ECAJ for their statement.
"On behalf of the Armenian-Australian community, we thank Mr. Peter Wertheim and the Jewish-Australian community for standing in solidarity with fellow peoples who have suffered genocide," said Kayserian.
"The support of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry is significant, in that it calls upon all nations and governments to recognise what one can only ignore if purposefully ignorant to the facts, that the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek experience 105 years ago can be called nothing but genocide."
