Harmon On The Armenian Resolution

In a letter published in the Los Angeles Times, Representative Jane Harmon addresses her reasons for asking the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee to please withdraw the Armenian Genocide bill - despite her being a co-sponsor of the bill. Her reason: this is simply the wrong time to do this.

As one whose own family was decimated by the Holocaust, I respond very personally to charges that I would deny the existence of savage acts of inhumanity against a group of people because of ethnic, religious or racial differences — be they Jews, Darfurians, Rwandans or Armenians.

Yet that's exactly what I was accused of last week after I sent a letter to Rep. Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urging him to withdrawHR 106, which I had co-sponsored earlier in the year. Some Armenian Americans, whose passion I appreciate, have misinterpreted my determination that the time is not right to vote on such a resolution as "denial" of the Armenian genocide. Nothing could be further from the truth.

No question: The debate raging in Washington over the Armenian genocide resolution is personal. Similar resolutions have passed the House twice — in 1975 and 1984 — and we are poised to pass another before Thanksgiving. Whether it will be brought to a vote in the Senate remains unclear.

I originally co-sponsored the resolution because I was convinced that the terrible crime against the Armenian people should be recognized and condemned. But after a visit in February to Turkey, where I met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Armenian Orthodox patriarch and colleagues of murdered Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, I became convinced that passing this resolution again at this time would isolate and embarrass a courageous and moderate Islamic government in perhaps the most volatile region in the world.

Harmon actually has some suggestions for constructive pressures that could be brought onto Turkey instead of the destructive pressure of finger-pointing. Instead of pushing for the adoption of a word, why not ask Turkey to start reconciling with its own large Armenian population? Why not encourage Turkey to normalize relations with Armenia? Why not do something to help rather than hurt global relations?

I guess that would be too hard. Making a gesture is easier. (Oh, and won't this endear Harmon even more to the nutroots.)