The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide [Hardcover]

Yair Auron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0765801914 | ISBN-13: 978-0765801913

The Banality of Denial examines the attitudes of the State of Israel and its leading institutions toward the Armenian Genocide. Israels view of this issue has special significance and deserves attentive study, as it is a country composed of a people who were victims of the Holocaust. The volume seeks both to examine the passive, indifferent Israeli attitude towards the Armenian Genocide, and to explore active Israeli measures to undermine attempts at safeguarding the memory of the Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Banality of Indifference and The Banality of Denial are groundbreaking works of scholarship and will soon become essential reading for students in a wide range of fields, including global politics, genocide studies, Zionism, and international ethics."- Middle East Journal

About the Author

Yair Auron is professor at the Open University of Israel. He is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in Jewish Political Studies Review, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Contemporary Jewry. In addition he is the author of many books on genocide and contemporary Judaism, including A Perfect Injustice: Genocide and Theft of Armenian Wealth, The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, and The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 338 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (June 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765801914
• ISBN-13: 978-0765801913
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,548,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of the Banality of Genocide, March 30, 2006

By 

Robert Talan (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide (Paperback)

This book is a very insightful and well written.The Israeli government and certain Zionist interests have played an active role in helping Turkey in it's propaganda effort against the Armenian Genocide .It would seem strange that Israel who comdemns those who deny the Jewish Holocaust such as the KKK ,David Irving and others would be so guilty of the hypocracy of facilitating the denial of the Armenian genocide.This Israeli hypocracy is exposed well in this book .Mr Auron and many other Jewish scholars have supported the Armenians in gaining recognition for the first major genocide of the 20th century.Many forget that the Armenian genocide was the prelude to the Holocaust and Hitler is well known to have made the comment that no one remembers the Armenians .

3 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Political Analyst Writing about Controversial History?, May 31, 2008

By 

BrianAlbright - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide (Paperback)

Yair Auron is neither a historian nor an expert on Ottoman history! This person is a political analyst who has never studied history or received a degree in history and he's behaving like as if he is an expert on this complex subject. He's using misquotations and forgeries to substantiate his book of logical fallacies. A real Ottoman/Islamic historian, Dr. Bernard Lewis compares Nazi Denialism and historians who denounce the Armenian Genocide Allegations:

"The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law. What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute."

The Benality of Denial is nothing more than an attempt to silence opposing points of views by condemning dissenters as "denialists".