Israel commemorates 99th anniversary of Armenian Genocide (video) April 25, 2014 - 12:05 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel hosted a mass rally on April 24 to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Over 500 people gathered outside the Turkish and U.S. embassies in Tel-Aviv, with demonstrators including public figures, representatives of Armenian community and youth movements, the spokesman of Union of Armenians of Israel Ararat Mendel Korsunsky told PanARMENIAN.Net The city of Petah Tikva hosted the first ever protest rally, with representatives of the clergy and Armenian community participating. At the event, ex-mayoral candidate Rami Greenberg expressed condolences to the people of Armenia and urged his compatriots, survivors of Holocaust to share Armenia’s pain. The chair of Meretz party, the Armenian Genocide recognition champion Zahava Gal-On urged Israeli parliament to voice a clear stance on the issue after lengthy silence of the government. She called recognition of the Genocide a moral obligation and slammed Israeli leadership for sacrificing the memory of the victims to their cynical interests. “Though realizing importance of diplomatic ties with Turkey, I cannot accept Israel’s excuses for non-recognition of the tragedy. We need to let Ankara know that the Genocide recognition is neither a challenge nor a provocation. It is the moral obligation of Israeli people,” Ms Gal-On stressed. Photo: Sofia Mkrtchyan The Armenian Genocide The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million. Top stories The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says. Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer. A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says. London’s Armenian community has been left feeling “under attack” after the city’s Genocide monument was vandalised. Partner news | Armenia to participate in key EU meeting for the first time ever National Assembly speaker Alen Simonyan has said that Armenia will for the first time participate in the Conference. Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |