“The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory.”Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Shimon Peres, and the Armenian Genocide. Collage: Tablet Magazine; Erdogan photo: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images; Peres photo: Amos BenGershom/GPO via Getty Images; background photo: Wikimedia Commons
It’s time for Israel to rethink its rejection of the Armenian Genocide
BY PETER BALAKIAN
There has been speculation about Turkey’s shifting international ties ever since the election of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the Islamist AKP party, in 2003, and the Gaza flotilla incident of May created a new breach in the long-standing alliance between Turkey and Israel. Among the many issues that have emerged in post-flotilla relations between the two countries is the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
The flotilla episode is fraught with complexities and ironies on both sides. While the Turkish-led mission focused on a grave human rights crisis—Israel’s oppressive treatment of Gaza’s Palestinians—Turkey’s righteous indignation toward Israel both oversimplifies Israel’s distress about Hamas and seems glaringly hypocritical in view of its own human-rights problems. Those problems, which include Turkey’s repressive and violent treatment of its large Kurdish population, some 15 million or more, and its record of legal detention, imprisonment, and torture of Turkish intellectuals, journalists, and political activists, constitutes one of the world’s worst human rights records, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports repeatedly show, over the past 20 years. Add to that Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus in violation of international law and its international campaign to falsify the history of its genocide of the Armenians in 1915, and the ironies multiply.
While there remains a narrative among opinion-makers like New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman that frames Turkey as an exemplary friend and a real democracy, Jews should wrestle with some truths about past and present realities. Jews, like Christians, lived as designated infidels under the Ottomans, often under harsh and repressive laws; Zionists were jailed and killed outright by the Turkish government through the end of World War I (Palestine was under Ottoman rule then). The U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916, an American Jew, Henry Morgenthau, said more than once that he feared that the fate of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks awaited the Jews next. It remains uncomfortable for Jews to recall that Turkey supplied the Nazis with large amounts of chromium during World War II, a mineral that was used, among other things, for killing in concentration camps. And today a virulent anti-Semitism has spread throughout Turkey so that recently a banner of the Islamic Saadet Party read: “Legendary leader Hitler, our patience is running out, we need your spirit.”
It’s a strange irony that in recent decades Israeli and Jewish diasporan groups have colluded with Turkey’s aggressive policy of denying and rewriting the history of the Armenian Genocide. In this equation the Armenian past has become a bargaining chip between Turkey and Israel, which have a regional partnership based on reciprocal needs. Turkey is an important source of Israel’s water supply and at least until recently, had been a friendly Muslim ally in a hostile region. Israel supplies Turkey with high-powered weapons, and the lucrative military manufacturing deals are important to Israel’s economy.
In 1982—by threatening the lives and livelihoods of Jews in Turkey—Turkey pressured the Israeli government to stop a genocide studies conference in Tel Aviv, at which a group of scholars were giving papers on the Armenian Genocide. As a result the Israeli government pulled out its support, Elie Wiesel decided he could not participate, and the conference was moved to an out-of-the-way location and was greatly diminished. In the 1990s, two Armenian documentaries that were to be aired on Israeli TV—one of them about the Armenian community of Jerusalem—were canceled at the last minute because of Turkish pressure. From 1989 on, Jewish-American organizations have worked at Ankara’s request to help stop a simple, non-binding Armenian Genocide resolution from passing in the U.S. Congress. When former Israeli Education Minister Yossi Sarid declared 10 years ago that he wanted to institute a new history curriculum with a chapter on genocide that would have “a broad reference to the Armenian genocide,” he was rebuked by his government and shortly thereafter left office.
In recent years, the Israeli government has mimicked at times the Turkish government’s propaganda about 1915. Shimon Peres, then Israel’s foreign minister, went as far as to say: “We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. What the Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide.” Peres’ crude denial elicited angry responses from Israeli scholars, and Israel Charny, the director of the Institute on Genocide in Jerusalem, crystallized the anger of many when he replied: “As a Jew and an Israeli I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”
The question remains: Is aiding Turkey’s denial of a genocidal past something Israel can continue to do? And at what cost? Amos Elon, writing in Haaretz about the “hypocrisy, opportunism, and moral trepidation” of Israeli collusion with Turkey, put it well when he asked: “But where is the boundary between the natural chauvinism of exploitation and the cheap opportunism of hypocrisy? What happens when the survivors of one Holocaust make political deals over the bitter memory of the survivors of another Holocaust?”
***
While political events provide opportunities for moments of reform, change, or introspection, it is not crass opportunism, I believe, that should dictate a change in Israeli policy on the Armenian Genocide. Rather, might this be a time—when the ironies of history have surfaced in the wake of the flotilla episode—for Israel and some Jewish diasporan organizations to rethink the moral concession Israel has made in this ethical arena—not as revenge against Turkey, but as thoughtful reflection on painful truths?
Given Turkey’s relentless campaign to deny the Armenian Genocide and insinuate its own extreme national narrative into democratic societies around the world, Israel’s call for the genocide’s proper and long overdue recognition would have important ethical meaning. It would, among other things, be a redress to genocide denial in general. As scholars have noted, denial is the final stage of genocide. The distinguished Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt has written that “denial of genocide, whether that of the Turks against the Armenians or the Nazis against the Jews … strives to reshape history in order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators.”
Recognizing the Armenian Genocide would allow Israel to embrace the deeply rooted relationship between Jews and Armenians in the modern age. When Hitler exhorted his military advisers eight days before invading Poland in 1939, “Who today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” he made it clear that he was both inspired by what the Young Turk government had done to the Armenians in 1915 and also noted that because the memory of what had been the most well-reported human rights catastrophe of the first quarter of the 20th century had been washed away, it was easier to commit genocide again.
Hitler learned a good deal from the genocide of the Armenians because Germany was Turkey’s wartime ally, and there was a great deal of documentation from German foreign officers and other German personnel in Turkey at the time. There are, of course, parallels—in bureaucratic organization, killing squad implementation, race ideology, and more—between the two events. Yet what ties Jews to Armenians even more deeply is the powerful role Jews have played in bearing witness to and later defining Turkey’s genocide.
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s life remains a crucial part of the history of rescue and resistance during the Armenian Genocide. As U.S. ambassador to Turkey, he had the courage to step outside his prescribed role as ambassador and confront Pashas Talaat and Enver—the two major architects of the plan; he implored both the U.S. and German governments to intercede and stop the mass killing of the Armenian population; and he was a primary force in helping to organize the first major relief campaign for the Armenians in the United States.
In the end Morgenthau would lose his job because of his stance on the Armenians. After leaving Turkey in 1916 and noting that it would remain “a place of unutterable horror” for him, he included in his acclaimed World War I memoir of 1918, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, the first full narrative about the Armenian Genocide in English.
Franz Werfel, the Austrian Jewish novelist who escaped Hitler’s death list by a hair in 1934, wrote the first majornovel about the Armenian Genocide, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, which depicted Armenian resistance to massacre in a small mountain village; it was also a novel that was a specific warning to the Jews of Europe about what might happen to them. The Nazis banned and burned the book in 1934, but the novel would inspire Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and became an important text in the educational curriculum for Jews in Palestine and then Israel.
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish legal scholar who coined the word genocide, was the first to use the term Armenian Genocide in the early 1940s—noting that it was the precise term for intended group destruction of the Armenians in 1915. He underscored that the concept “genocide” derived from his understanding of the acts committed against the Armenians in 1915 and against the Jews in the 1940s: “Examples of genocide,” he wrote in 1949, “are the destruction of the Armenians in the first World War, the destruction of the Jews in the second World War.” He also noted in his autobiography that his study of the Armenian massacres was a turning point in his life’s work.
In the modern era, the contributions to the Armenian Genocide discourse made by Jewish scholars both in Israel and worldwide has been extraordinary, and a list would be long and include Elie Wiesel, Robert Jay Lifton, Deborah Lipstadt, Robert Melson, Jay Winter, the documentary filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, Israeli scholars Yehuda Bauer, Israel Charny, and Yair Auron, who wrote The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide. Recently, the Center For Jewish History and the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York put on brilliant exhibitions on the lives of both Raphael Lemkin and Henry Morgenthau—in which the Armenian genocide figured significantly.
Given this long-standing record of Jewish engagement and intellectual achievement concerning the Armenian Genocide, and the deep ties between the two cultures—it would seem an organic thing for Israel to finally say: The game is over. The truth of history, the meaning of genocide, the importance of ethical memory is a defining part of Jewish intellectual tradition and identity. And, in the Armenian case, the two genocidal histories commingle in deep and historical ways. As for fear of Turkey? The other 20 countries (including France, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Greece, and Canada) that have passed Armenian Genocide resolutions have witnessed Turkey’s initial diplomatic anger, an ambassador recalled for a short time, and then it’s been back to business as usual—proving that the hysteria passes and life goes on.
The Israeli government could recognize the Armenian Genocide by honoring the words of the great founding genocide scholar Lemkin—a Holocaust survivor who lost 49 members of his own family to the Nazis. In August 1950, Lemkin wrote to a colleague: “Let us not forget that the heat of this month is less unbearable to us than the heat of the ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau and more lenient than the murderous heat in the desert of Aleppo which burned to death the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenian victims of genocide in 1915.”
As for Armenians, in the midst of this, they look on with bewilderment, anger, bitterness. For the sizable meaning and historical significance of the genocide committed against them, they feel endlessly embattled in the effort to preserve the truthful memory of what happened to them. It seems to most Armenians that the accurate memory of their history is an ethical necessity, a minimal thing to ask others to affirm in the face of the continued assault on historical truth by Turkey. Israel’s affirmation would be of distinct ethical importance given the common experience the two peoples have shared. For Israel, colluding with a denialism is too painfully ironic.
Peter Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities at Colgate University, is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, among other books.
, Oct 19, 2010
TurkishBoy says:
Oct 24, 2010 at 8:32 PM
I just noticed that this article was written by Peter Balakian – a virulent Armenian nationalist with ingrained hatred of anything Turkish. Balakian is an English professor, not a historian mind you, and he is known to travel around the country telling people how horrible the Turks are. His English degree does not give him any credibility as an expert in history. Even more, his book on the armenian genocide reads more like a work of fiction rather than an actual recount of historical events. For Mr Balakian to be taken seriously, he really needs to tone down the anti-turkish hatred in his speeches and lectures, one of which I had the misfortune to attend couple of years ago. I am sure he would be delighted to see Israel and Turkey go further apart, but I don’t think this would be in the best interest of the people of Israel and the people of Turkey.
Armenia adopted a foreign policy to normalize relations with its neighbors, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan stated at the meeting with students at Ural federal University. “We are ready to normalize relations without preconditions with all our neighbors, unlike them,” he said.
Prime Minister recalled Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s initiative to normalize relations without preconditions, but the reconciliation failed because of Turkey. “When the Armenia-Turkey Protocols were signed, Armenia submitted the documents for ratification in the Parliament. Turkey failed to do it and stepped back, setting the issue of Armenian Genocide and Karabakh conflict resolution as preconditions for rapprochement. The preconditions are unacceptable for Armenia,” Sargsyan underscored.
As to the international recognition of Armenian Genocide, the Prime Minister said activities are conducted to raise public awareness in this direction. Armenian public institutions take effective measures worldwide. Today there are dozens of states, which legally recognized Armenian Genocide under Ottoman Empire. We attach significance to the international recognition of 1915 mass killings of Armenians to present a real picture of Turkey to the world, its history and consequences,” Sargsyan emphasized.
via Turkey’s preconditions unacceptable, Armenian Premier says | Armenia News – NEWS.am.
Official Washington is quite likely to recognize the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey early last century, Alexander Khramchikhin, Head of the Analytical Department, Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis (IPMA), told NEWS.am.
“At present Turkey is showing a most high level of independence, which is not to the United States’ liking. So the U.S. may use this lever to re-establish it control over Turkey,” the expert said. Khramchikhin believes such a scenario is quite probable. “Over the recent years, since the Justice and Development Party came to power, Turkey tendency to independence has been an accomplished fact,” the expert noted. Turkish Premier Recep Erdogan’s latest statement is one more piece of evidence thereof.
According to the expert, Turkey may revise its foreign policy and decline its pro-western policy. “A number of factors, including its ‘flirt’ with Iran, Turkish-Israeli conflict and so on, are indicative of this,” he said.
As to the possibility of deterioration of U.S.-Turkey relations, and even severance of diplomatic relations, Khramchikhin rules it out. “Severing diplomatic relations is tantamount to declaring war. I rule it out. However, the present tendencies will inevitably lead to cooling off in bilateral relations,” he said.
In his recent interview with Pakistani mass media, Turkish Premier Recep Erdogan accused the U.S. of supporting international terrorism. The flotilla incident unmasked Washington, which is overtly supportive of Israeli act of terror.
via U.S. to punish Turkey through Armenian Genocide | Armenia News – NEWS.am.
The first problem with the widely circulated reports that several Armenians have defrauded Medicare out of millions of dollars is that these individuals are innocent until proven guilty. Only after a court establishes their guilt, they can be labeled as crooks or criminals.
It is even more outrageous that the good name of all Armenians is being tarnished by sweeping media generalizations, bringing intense feelings of shame to millions of law-abiding Armenians who are overly sensitive about their reputation. Last week’s sensational headlines referring to an “Armenian crime syndicate” or “Armenian criminals” completely traumatized the Armenian-American community. Exploiting the media hype, all sorts of racists, Armenian-haters, and naturally, some Turks have come out of the woodwork to post vicious anti-Armenian comments on various internet sites.
One of the most insulting references to these arrests was made on the radio/internet show called “The Young Turks.” As if the name of the show was not offensive enough to Armenians, the co-hosts, Ana Kasparian, an Armenian-American, and Cenk Uygur, a Turkish American, last week repeatedly bashed the accused as well as all Armenians.
The fact that Kasparian is an Armenian makes her comments even more offensive. Trying to be funny or entertaining does not give her a license to hurl insults at individuals who have been merely accused, but not convicted of any crimes, and the community at large for the alleged crimes of a few! Here are excerpts of the co-hosts’ disgraceful remarks:
Kasparian: “Dozens of Armenians throughout the United States have recently got arrested for Medicare fraud. Now this is an age-old trick of Armenians. This is what Armenians do. OK. And that’s a gross generalization. And a large majority of these offenders lived in Glendale, California. I am not kidding. That’s a fact.
Uygur: That’s literally true! [Chuckling]. By the way, I am amused by the Armenian community Medicare fraud in Glendale. [Imitating an Armenian accent]: “You do Medical fraud? Of course. Who doesn’t do Medicare fraud? Come now!” Is that close to an Armenian accent?
Kasparian: It’s close. So, what these individuals would do is, they would steal the identities of doctors, identities of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the United States and they would make false claims. They would create these phantom health care clinics that don’t even really exist and then bill Medicare for treatments that never happened and then Medicare would send this money to these fake doctors or these doctors that have their identities stolen….
Uygur: Let me give you a little detail how it works. It’s kind of interesting. So, they steal a list of doctors’ names….
Kasparian: …There is shame on two different sides here. Shame on the Armenians and shame on the government for not realizing it until now — until these Armenians stole $163 million from Medicare [The correct figure is $35 million].
Uygur: You know what? That is a pretty good scam. You gotta give it up to them. They are working up in Glendale. [Chuckling].
Kasparian: And it wasn’t just in Glendale. These are Armenians throughout the country. Like, we got Armenians in New York City, we got Armenians in California, a couple in Ohio, some in New Mexico, some in Florida, all over the place. It’s a massive operation. They’re all connected. They all know what they’re doing. It’s insanity. In fact, officials equated this to the mafia. This is like the Armenian mafia operating in the United States. Part of me felt like I should be a little proud of that, because I am kind of a bad ass, but another part of me of course was humiliated. I feel so bad for the people that are victims of this. Because not only the government gets millions of dollars stolen from them, there are people who have their identity stolen. So these Armenians can sit at home, drive their Rolls Royces, and not do anything.
Uygur: I’m gonna take a little controversial view on this. Obviously, they couldn’t be more wrong — busted, go to jail, etc. We are not having any of that conversation. On the other hand, it is a little ingenious…. You know what happens! People get greedy. Once you got that scam going, and you haven’t got caught in a long time, you think let’s churn this thing out. Everyone wants a piece of the action. Next thing you know, everybody in Glendale knows, and they all want their cut in it. Of course, there is an ugly side to this. One of the guys I believe you saw in the picture was “vor.”
Kasparian: By the way, “vor” means “ass.” I’m wondering why all of the news articles refer to him as “vor.”
Uygur: The news articles claim that “vor” means “thief-in-law” which is a bizarre thing….
Violating all legal and journalistic norms, the co-hosts of the show never once use the words “alleged” or “accused” to describe the defendants. If the charges against some of these individuals are dropped, Kasparian and Uygur could be sued for libel.
So far tens of thousands of viewers have seen this particular episode on various internet sites. Thousands more have heard it on radio. Over 800 viewers have posted comments on YouTube alone. You can watch the show and post a comment by clicking on: .
The 33 Chilean miners were not the only ones brought to daylight last week; a massive criminal Armenian immigrant ring defrauding the Medicare by a whopping $135 million was, also. While the former delighted us and uplifted our spirits, the latter shocked, disgusted, and outraged us.
How can one not be incensed? While those gold chain wearing, hairy and smelly thieves were lining up to buy 350,000 dollar sports cars with American taxpayers’ hard-earned money, most American families, faced with job cuts, dwindling incomes, and foreclosures, were dreading to put food on table.
But there is worse. What the Armenian crooks perpetrated has far reaching implications impacting a wide range of policies and programs affecting all of us well into the future. These range from the cost of recent health care reforms, identification theft, and safety of senior citizens, all the way to the security of government archives, abuse of taxpayer funds, and foreign policy influenced by Armenian crooks and terrorists with access to some gullible or corrupt American politicians.
ARE BOXER AND MENENDEZ, RECIPIENTS OF ARMENIAN MONEY, CLEAN?
This is why I think Boxer’s campaign chest must be investigated: “Armenian organization to back Barbara Boxer at November elections”, news.am, October 15, 2010: https://news.am/eng/news/34644.html ; )
“ The committee on political affairs of the Armenian Council of America will back Sen. Barbara Boxer at the elections scheduled for November…The Armenian Council of America made the decision due to close ties of Sen. Boxer with the Armenian community and pro-Armenian activities in the Senate…Barbara Boxer is an advocate of the Armenian Genocide recognition and has repeatedly been the author of relevant bills. She also raised the issue on unblocking of the Armenian border by Turkey. Senators Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez have jointly placed a “hold” on U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan nominee Matthew Bryza, noting his close ties with Azerbaijan.”
Here is my beef with all this: ambassadors to Turkey and Azerbaijan, both staunch American allies, cannot be appointed, as the vetting process is taken hostage by the Armenian lobby through their proxies in the Senate, Boxer and Menendez. I am wondering, therefore, how much of that dirty Armenian money found its way into the coffers of Boxer, Menendez, Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, and other passionate “genociders” who bend over backwards to appease the Armenian lobby, even at the cost of sacrificing American interests.
I am in the process of getting a copy of the official indictment. I plan to check the Armenian names against the Armenian donors of Boxer and Menendez, as the Federal Election Commission reports are public. If names match, then Boxer and Menendez must resign immediately for using Armenian fraud money to serve Armenian interests. Whether American interests were hurt or not by their actions does not even matter at that moment, because they will have served the interests of a foreign government (Armenia) without first registering as a foreign agent or lobbyist, thus breaking the law. This goes for Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, and other bogus “genociders” on the hill.
I appreciate that it could be hard to check, since Boxer has had over 8,000 donors in 2010, and the tricky Armenians use different spelling variations of their names making it much harder to track them down without serious investment of time and resources. But I think FBI should do it to protect the American taxpayer. If FBI finds some of those Armenian crooks in the donor rolls of Boxer, Menendez, or others, then so be it! If they do the crime, they should do the time. Let’s throw the trash out! Impeach them!
If you think all this is far-fetched, then I suggest you think again. See, for example, “Dem donor arrested in Medicare ring”, Politico, October 14, 2010 ( .)
One of the alleged Armenian gangsters arrested in the record-breaking $163 million Medicare fraud scheme was also a major donor to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Pogos Satamyan of Glendale, CA, reportedly arrested today, gave the DCCC $10,000 just this July, according to public records. (Only $10K? What a cheapskate! )
OUTSMARTING THE SYSTEM: A “SKILL” REVERED IN ARMENIAN CULTURE
Armenian fraud is not something new. “Outsmarting the system” seems to be a national pass time among most Armenians. Deception, fraud, lies, in the finest tradition of Andonian of the fake Talaat telegrams fame, should give any fair minded American a clue about the Armenian psyche.
What I wonder is not that organized Armenian fraud makes the news for the millionth time, but did any of this Armenian fraud money, even a cent, found its way into the campaign funds of some gullible and/or corrupt politicians. After all, these politicians sold America’s interests time and again, just for a few dirty Armenian dollars, didn’t they? Shouldn’t we impeach corrupt politicians for siding with Armenian criminals?
ARMENIAN FRAUD AND DECEPTION: A CHRONIC DISEASE
This is not the first case of medical fraud by Armenians in US, nor is it the biggest. For example, just two years ago, in 2008, some 6 Armenians were indicted by the FBI on a $2 million fraud case: . Here is what was said in the April 4, 2008 report “ Six arrested and charged in connection with $2 million health care fraud ring”:
“ LOS ANGELES – Six men charged with running a crime ring that stole nearly $2 million from federal and private health insurers were arrested here today following a federal and local probe involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a health care fraud scheme.
Collectively, the defendants face 62 counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, money laundering and grand theft of personal property. The alleged crimes occurred between March 2005 and September 2006.
‘On a national level, health care fraud continues to milk billions of dollars annually from government-funded health plans and private health insurers,’ District Attorney Steve Cooley said. ‘Health care fraud affects us all. These criminals not only squander health funds for underserved populations who truly warrant subsidized aid, they also affect the average consumer who is hit in the pocket book by fraud-related costs incurred by private health companies.’
Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of Investigations in Los Angeles, said ICE will continue to work with its local and federal law enforcement partners to attack and dismantle these kinds of schemes.
‘Aside from the obvious harm to insurers and needy patients, the money siphoned off in fraud schemes like this is often funneled into other forms of criminal enterprise,’ Schoch said.
Those charged in the case are: Karapet Khacheryan, 37; Hovik Joe Altunyan, 30; Edkar Mikirtijyan, 25; Grigor Khorikyan, 29; Vahan E. Harutyunyan, 32; and Smbat Khachtryan, 26. The six men are due to be arraigned at the Criminal Justice Center April 7. Bail is recommended at $1.98 million for each defendant.
The case, which was referred to the District Attorney’s Office by ICE and the United States Department of Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General, began as a drug and money laundering investigation, later expanding to include health care fraud.
‘Fighting Medicare and Medicaid fraud is a top priority,” said Glenn Ferry, Special Agent in Charge for the Los Angeles Region of the Office of Inspector General for the federal Department of Health and Human Services. “We will work tirelessly with our federal and state law enforcement partners to bring those who perpetrate such frauds to justice.’
The men were taken into custody early this morning by federal authorities from residences in North Hollywood, Glendale, and Van Nuys, Calif. A seventh suspect was taken into custody on an unrelated gun charge. Search warrants also were executed at two businesses in Burbank. Of those named in the case, the highest number of charges faced by a single defendant is 31 counts. ..”
It was a coordinated effort The Los Angeles County Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force (HALT), the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes and COPS bureaus, and the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Medical Fraud and Elder Abuse assisted federal agents in this investigation. All defendants faced special allegations because the offenses involved fraud and embezzlement with a pattern of related felony conduct. The special allegations also stemmed from the fact the defendants were suspected of taking more than $500,000, with estimated property losses exceeding more than $1 million.
ARMENIAN THIEVERY HAS DEEP CULTURAL ROOTS
I remember well how back in 1999, we were all shocked to learn that a bunch of Armenian crooks defrauded Medi-Cal (that’s California’s Medicaid) of $1 billion USD! That’s by far the largest medical fraud case in the history of the world:
Here is what was reported by Rone Tempest , Los Angeles Times Sacramento Bureau Chief, on December 08, 1999, in his article titled “Medi-Cal Scandal Alarms Armenians”:
“ Culture: Leaders stress that those caught are a tiny minority, and that they may have learned such behavior as a survival skill in former Soviet Union.
Chagrined by the estimated $1-billion Medi-Cal fraud scandal among new immigrants in their community, Armenian church and civic leaders say that an explanation may lie not in Los Angeles, where most of the crime occurred, but in the culture and politics of their homeland in the former Soviet Union.
Vazken Movsesian, parish priest of St. Gregory Armenian Orthodox Church in Pasadena, said members of the largely ethnic Armenian network charged with bilking the state and federal governments using phony medical billings came from a place ‘where the government was the government you cheated from.’ “
Nice try by the Armenian priest to control damage, but unfortunately for Armenians, the organized fraud cases unearthed since this 1999 report shows that the Armenian community supports such illegal activities, just like they supported Armenian terrorism victimizing Turks, both in the Ottoman Empire from 1882-1922 and in the United States 1973 to present. Violence and corruption, the twin evils, seem to find fertile grounds in the Armenian culture.
Armenian Consul General in Los Angeles and Mayor are in jail as we speak for selling fake documents to Armenian murderers and rapists to get a permanent residence in USA, for a mere , $35.000… A bargain!
ARMENIA IN PANIC
Alarmed by the developments, the government of Armenia embarked upon a hastily put together damage control program (See “Armenia to help US investigate Medicare scam”, By AVET DEMURYAN, Associated Press, YEREVAN, Armenia, October 14, 2010: . ) Too little, too late.
Armenia now says it will cooperate with the United States in an investigation of Armenian gangsters accused of using bogus health care clinics to cheat Medicare out of $163 million.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan said today that Armenia was sorry. The operation was reportedly led by captured crime boss, Armen Kazarian, who is known by the Soviet term “thief in law,” or “godfather” in English. Here is the rub: a top Armenian police who wanted to remain anonymous apparently told The Associated Press that about 40 ethnic Armenian godfathers operate in Europe, the U.S., Australia and the Middle East. U.S. authorities, who say this is the largest fraud in Medicare’s history, are not amused.
VIDEOS OF ARMENIAN CROOKS AND SWINDLERS AVAILABLE
See “Dozens Charged in $163M Medicare Fraud Scheme”, a CBS, , New York, Oct. 13, 2010:
Here is a glimpse of what CBS said:
“A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program’s history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday. (Scroll down to watch a “60 Minutes” report on Medicare fraud from earlier this year)
Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.
CBS News reports that more than 60 people were in custody as of Wednesday afternoon.
The scheme’s scope and sophistication “puts the traditional Mafia to shame,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. “They ran a veritable fraud franchise.” ( Read the First Indictment (PDF) , Read the Second Indictment (PDF) )
Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was “completely notional,” Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a statement. “The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage.” (video:
Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime )
The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a “vor,” prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, was in custody in Los Angeles.
Bharara said it was the first time a vor – “the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather” – had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.
Kazarian, 46, of Glendale, Calif., and two alleged ringleaders – Davit Mirzoyan, 34, also of Glendale, and Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn – were named in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan.
Most of the defendants were to appear in court later Wednesday on charges including racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
Authorities began the New York-based investigation after information on 2,900 Medicare patients in upstate New York – including Social Security numbers and dates of birth – were reported stolen.
The defendants in the New York case also had stolen the identities of doctors and set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states, authorities said. The names were used to submit fake bills for care that was never given, they said.
Some of the phony paperwork was a giveaway: It showed eye doctors doing bladder tests; ear, nose and throat specialists performing pregnancy ultrasounds; obstetricians testing for skin allergies; and dermatologists billing for heart exams…”
In the New York portion of the case, more $100 million in fraudulent bills were submitted and Medicare paid out at least $35 million, sometimes by wiring it to the clinics’ banks accounts, according to the investigators. Most of the defendants were reported to be “ Armenian nationals or immigrants” with substantial ties to Armenia and even criminals there, in the indictment. Couriers would often carry cash proceeds from the fraud back to Armenia, it added. Prosecutors were reportedly seeking forfeiture of real estate in Las Vegas; Palm Springs, Calif.; and elsewhere, and of expensive cars like a 2007 Maserati and a 2006 Jaguar.
***
This is far from over as the saga of Armenian thieves, crooks, swindlers, fast talkers, and genocide peddlers continues…
The 33 Chilean miners were not the only ones brought to daylight last week; a massive criminal Armenian immigrant ring defrauding the Medicare by a whopping $135 million was, also. While the former delighted us and uplifted our spirits, the latter shocked and outraged us.
How can one not be incensed? While those gold chain wearing, hairy and smelly thieves were lining up to buy 350,000 dollar sports cars with American taxpayers’ hard-earned money, most American families, faced with job cuts, dwindling incomes, and foreclosures, were dreading to put food on table.
But there is worse. What the Armenian crooks perpetrated has far reaching implications impacting a wide range of policies and programs affecting all of us well into the future. These range from the cost of recent health care reforms, identification theft, and safety of senior citizens, all the way to the security of government archives, abuse of taxpayer funds, and foreign policy influenced by Armenian crooks and terrorists with access to some gullible or corrupt American politicians.
ARE BOXER AND MENENDEZ, RECIPIENTS OF ARMENIAN MONEY, CLEAN?
This is why I think Boxer’s campaign chest must be investigated: “Armenian organization to back Barbara Boxer at November elections”, news.am, October 15, 2010: https://news.am/eng/news/34644.html ; )
“ The committee on political affairs of the Armenian Council of America will back Sen. Barbara Boxer at the elections scheduled for November…The Armenian Council of America made the decision due to close ties of Sen. Boxer with the Armenian community and pro-Armenian activities in the Senate…Barbara Boxer is an advocate of the Armenian Genocide recognition and has repeatedly been the author of relevant bills. She also raised the issue on unblocking of the Armenian border by Turkey. Senators Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez have jointly placed a “hold” on U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan nominee Matthew Bryza, noting his close ties with Azerbaijan.”
Here is my beef with all this: ambassadors to Turkey and Azerbaijan, both staunch American allies, cannot be appointed, as the vetting process is taken hostage by the Armenian lobby through their proxies in the Senate, Boxer and Menendez. I am wondering, therefore, how much of that dirty Armenian money found its way into the coffers of Boxer, Menendez, Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, and other passionate “genociders” who bend over backwards to appease the Armenian lobby, even at the cost of sacrificing American interests.
I am in the process of getting a copy of the official indictment. I plan to check the Armenian names against the Armenian donors of Boxer and Menendez, as the Federal Election Commission reports are public. If names match, then Boxer and Menendez must resign immediately for using Armenian fraud money to serve Armenian interests. Whether American interests were hurt or not by their actions does not even matter at that moment, because they will have served the interests of a foreign government (Armenia) without first registering as a foreign agent or lobbyist, thus breaking the law. This goes for Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, and other bogus “genociders” on the hill.
I appreciate that it could be hard to check, since Boxer has had over 8,000 donors in 2010, and the tricky Armenians use different spelling variations of their names making it much harder to track them down without serious investment of time and resources. But I think FBI should do it to protect the American taxpayer. If FBI finds some of those Armenian crooks in the donor rolls of Boxer, Menendez, or others, then so be it! If they do the crime, they should do the time. Let’s throw the trash out! Impeach them!
If you think all this is far-fetched, then I suggest you think again. See, for example, “Dem donor arrested in Medicare ring”, Politico, October 14, 2010 ( .)
One of the alleged Armenian gangsters arrested in the record-breaking $163 million Medicare fraud scheme was also a major donor to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Pogos Satamyan of Glendale, CA, reportedly arrested today, gave the DCCC $10,000 just this July, according to public records. (Only $10K? What a cheapskate! )
OUTSMARTING THE SYSTEM: A “SKILL” REVERED IN ARMENIAN CULTURE
Armenian fraud is not something new. “Outsmarting the system” seems to be a national pass time among most Armenians. Deception, fraud, lies, in the finest tradition of Andonian of the fake Talaat telegrams fame, should give any fair minded American a clue about the Armenian psyche.
What I wonder is not that organized Armenian fraud makes the news for the millionth time, but did any of this Armenian fraud money, even a cent, found its way into the campaign funds of some gullible and/or corrupt politicians. After all, these politicians sold America’s interests time and again, just for a few dirty Armenian dollars, didn’t they? Shouldn’t we impeach corrupt politicians for siding with Armenian criminals?
ARMENIAN FRAUD AND DECEPTION: A CHRONIC DISEASE
This is not the first case of medical fraud by Armenians in US, nor is it the biggest. For example, just two years ago, in 2008, some 6 Armenians were indicted by the FBI on a $2 million fraud case: . Here is what was said in the April 4, 2008 report “ Six arrested and charged in connection with $2 million health care fraud ring”:
“ LOS ANGELES – Six men charged with running a crime ring that stole nearly $2 million from federal and private health insurers were arrested here today following a federal and local probe involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a health care fraud scheme.
Collectively, the defendants face 62 counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, money laundering and grand theft of personal property. The alleged crimes occurred between March 2005 and September 2006.
‘On a national level, health care fraud continues to milk billions of dollars annually from government-funded health plans and private health insurers,’ District Attorney Steve Cooley said. ‘Health care fraud affects us all. These criminals not only squander health funds for underserved populations who truly warrant subsidized aid, they also affect the average consumer who is hit in the pocket book by fraud-related costs incurred by private health companies.’
Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of Investigations in Los Angeles, said ICE will continue to work with its local and federal law enforcement partners to attack and dismantle these kinds of schemes.
‘Aside from the obvious harm to insurers and needy patients, the money siphoned off in fraud schemes like this is often funneled into other forms of criminal enterprise,’ Schoch said.
Those charged in the case are: Karapet Khacheryan, 37; Hovik Joe Altunyan, 30; Edkar Mikirtijyan, 25; Grigor Khorikyan, 29; Vahan E. Harutyunyan, 32; and Smbat Khachtryan, 26. The six men are due to be arraigned at the Criminal Justice Center April 7. Bail is recommended at $1.98 million for each defendant.
The case, which was referred to the District Attorney’s Office by ICE and the United States Department of Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General, began as a drug and money laundering investigation, later expanding to include health care fraud.
‘Fighting Medicare and Medicaid fraud is a top priority,” said Glenn Ferry, Special Agent in Charge for the Los Angeles Region of the Office of Inspector General for the federal Department of Health and Human Services. “We will work tirelessly with our federal and state law enforcement partners to bring those who perpetrate such frauds to justice.’
The men were taken into custody early this morning by federal authorities from residences in North Hollywood, Glendale, and Van Nuys, Calif. A seventh suspect was taken into custody on an unrelated gun charge. Search warrants also were executed at two businesses in Burbank. Of those named in the case, the highest number of charges faced by a single defendant is 31 counts. ..”
It was a coordinated effort The Los Angeles County Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force (HALT), the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes and COPS bureaus, and the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Medical Fraud and Elder Abuse assisted federal agents in this investigation. All defendants faced special allegations because the offenses involved fraud and embezzlement with a pattern of related felony conduct. The special allegations also stemmed from the fact the defendants were suspected of taking more than $500,000, with estimated property losses exceeding more than $1 million.
ARMENIAN THIEVERY HAS DEEP CULTURAL ROOTS
I remember well how back in 1999, we were all shocked to learn that a bunch of Armenian crooks defrauded Medi-Cal (that’s California’s Medicaid) of $1 billion USD! That’s by far the largest medical fraud case in the history of the world:
Here is what was reported by Rone Tempest , Los Angeles Times Sacramento Bureau Chief, on December 08, 1999, in his article titled “Medi-Cal Scandal Alarms Armenians”:
“ Culture: Leaders stress that those caught are a tiny minority, and that they may have learned such behavior as a survival skill in former Soviet Union.
Chagrined by the estimated $1-billion Medi-Cal fraud scandal among new immigrants in their community, Armenian church and civic leaders say that an explanation may lie not in Los Angeles, where most of the crime occurred, but in the culture and politics of their homeland in the former Soviet Union.
Vazken Movsesian, parish priest of St. Gregory Armenian Orthodox Church in Pasadena, said members of the largely ethnic Armenian network charged with bilking the state and federal governments using phony medical billings came from a place ‘where the government was the government you cheated from.’ “
Nice try by the Armenian priest to control damage, but unfortunately for Armenians, the organized fraud cases unearthed since this 1999 report shows that the Armenian community supports such illegal activities, just like they supported Armenian terrorism victimizing Turks, both in the Ottoman Empire from 1882-1922 and in the United States 1973 to present. Violence and corruption, the twin evils, seem to find fertile grounds in the Armenian culture.
Armenian Consul General in Los Angeles and Mayor are in jail as we speak for selling fake documents to Armenian murderers and rapists to get a permanent residence in USA, for a mere , $35.000… A bargain!
ARMENIA IN PANIC
Alarmed by the developments, the government of Armenia embarked upon a hastily put together damage control program (See “Armenia to help US investigate Medicare scam”, By AVET DEMURYAN, Associated Press, YEREVAN, Armenia, October 14, 2010: . ) Too little, too late.
Armenia now says it will cooperate with the United States in an investigation of Armenian gangsters accused of using bogus health care clinics to cheat Medicare out of $163 million.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan said today that Armenia was sorry. The operation was reportedly led by captured crime boss, Armen Kazarian, who is known by the Soviet term “thief in law,” or “godfather” in English. Here is the rub: a top Armenian police who wanted to remain anonymous apparently told The Associated Press that about 40 ethnic Armenian godfathers operate in Europe, the U.S., Australia and the Middle East. U.S. authorities, who say this is the largest fraud in Medicare’s history, are not amused.
VIDEOS OF ARMENIAN CROOKS AND SWINDLERS AVAILABLE
See “Dozens Charged in $163M Medicare Fraud Scheme”, a CBS, , New York, Oct. 13, 2010:
Here is a glimpse of what CBS said:
“A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program’s history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday. (Scroll down to watch a “60 Minutes” report on Medicare fraud from earlier this year)
Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.
CBS News reports that more than 60 people were in custody as of Wednesday afternoon.
The scheme’s scope and sophistication “puts the traditional Mafia to shame,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. “They ran a veritable fraud franchise.” ( Read the First Indictment (PDF) , Read the Second Indictment (PDF) )
Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was “completely notional,” Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a statement. “The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage.” (video:
Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime )
The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a “vor,” prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, was in custody in Los Angeles.
Bharara said it was the first time a vor – “the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather” – had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.
Kazarian, 46, of Glendale, Calif., and two alleged ringleaders – Davit Mirzoyan, 34, also of Glendale, and Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn – were named in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan.
Most of the defendants were to appear in court later Wednesday on charges including racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
Authorities began the New York-based investigation after information on 2,900 Medicare patients in upstate New York – including Social Security numbers and dates of birth – were reported stolen.
The defendants in the New York case also had stolen the identities of doctors and set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states, authorities said. The names were used to submit fake bills for care that was never given, they said.
Some of the phony paperwork was a giveaway: It showed eye doctors doing bladder tests; ear, nose and throat specialists performing pregnancy ultrasounds; obstetricians testing for skin allergies; and dermatologists billing for heart exams…”
In the New York portion of the case, more $100 million in fraudulent bills were submitted and Medicare paid out at least $35 million, sometimes by wiring it to the clinics’ banks accounts, according to the investigators. Most of the defendants were reported to be “ Armenian nationals or immigrants” with substantial ties to Armenia and even criminals there, in the indictment. Couriers would often carry cash proceeds from the fraud back to Armenia, it added. Prosecutors were reportedly seeking forfeiture of real estate in Las Vegas; Palm Springs, Calif.; and elsewhere, and of expensive cars like a 2007 Maserati and a 2006 Jaguar.
***
This is far from over as the saga of Armenian thieves, crooks, swindlers, fast talkers, and genocide peddlers continues…
