Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last month a landmark decision was announced, marking an
important recognition of one of the most horrible crimes against humanity of the 20th century, the Armenian Genocide. What was particularly important was that the action came from the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people who were victims of the Nazi Holocaust. 

Israel's education minister, Yossi Sarid, made the historic decision to include the Armenian
Genocide in the national curriculum. Mr. Sarid announced his decision on April 24, the traditional day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, at a ceremony in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Expressing regret that Israeli students know very little of the genocide that began in 1915, in which some 1.5 million Armenians, one-third of the Armenian people, were killed by Turkish forces, Mr. Sarid said, `I will do everything so that Israeli pupils will study and learn about the Armenian Genocide.' 

Mr. Speaker, the issue of Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide received extensive
coverage in an article that appeared in the May 12, 2000, Internet edition of the Jerusalem Post titled `A Tragedy Offstage No More,' by Leora Eren Frucht.  As the article noted, `When Hitler ordered his death units to `exterminate without mercy or pity, men, women and children belonging to the Polish-speaking race,' he was confident that the world would overlook the mass murder. `After all,' he asked rhetorically on the eve of the 1939 invasion of Poland, `who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?' By the time that the Nazis were finally stopped 6 years later, 6 million European Jews had been murdered, as well as millions of other innocent victims of other nationalities. 

Mr. Speaker, the Armenian and Jewish peoples are united in a common bond of suffering and in the struggle to overcome the tragedies of the past. While they were being massacred in unthinkable numbers, Armenians in the Ottoman Turkish Empire during World War I and European Jews during World War II, most of the rest of the world was looking the other way, although many knew what was happening. 

After the Holocaust, the Jewish people built the State of Israel into a prosperous democracy,
despite being surrounded by hostile neighbors. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Armenian people have worked to build democracy and economic reform in the Republic of Armenian, despite being surrounded by hostile neighbors. 

One of the hostile neighbors who has threatened Armenia since its independence a decade ago is Turkey. It was, of course, in the territory of the present-day Republic of Turkey and in the name of Turkish nationalism that the genocide against the Armenians took place during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Yet Turkey continues its unconscionable official policy of denying that the genocide ever took place. In today's world, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, continues to blockade its much smaller and more vulnerable neighbor, Armenia, despite Armenia's standing offer to normalize relations without preconditions. 

In the aforementioned Jerusalem Post article, Turkey's official policy of denial was described as `outrageous' by Deborah Lipstadt, the American historian who defeated Holocaust denier David Irving in a highly publicized libel trial in London court last month. Professor Yehuda Bauer, academic director of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, stated, `If you accept the U.N. 1948 definition of genocide, which we and many other nations have done, then there can be no argument about calling this a genocide,' referring to Armenia. 

Yet the decision by Israel's education minister was a difficult one. Israel has been working to
steadily improve its relations with Turkey at the same time that Israel works to improve relations with Armenia. Mr. Sarid's decision on including the Armenian Genocide in the Israeli curriculum prompted an outcry in Turkey that included a protest to Israel's charge d'affaires in Ankara. 

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, Turkey frequently has shown its willingness to play hardball to intimidate other nations into not recognizing the Armenian Genocide. When the National Assembly in France adopted a bill in 1998 to acknowledge the genocide, Turkey promptly suspended the signing of a $145 million defense contract. 

Thus, Mr. Speaker, considering Israel's vulnerable position in the Middle East and its need to
cultivate relations with Muslim nations, the action by Education Minister Sarid was a true profile in courage, a real statement of principle. 

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to cite a letter dated May 22, 2000 that the Armenian
Assembly of America has received from Israeli Education Minister Yossi Sarid, and I quote, `I fully intend to allow Israeli pupils to learn the lessons of your tragedy, which is ours and the world's, as well. Israelis are the last people who can afford to forget the tragedies of this
magnitude.'